Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
STOPPED — STRATOCRACY
STOPPED, pp. Closed; obstructed; hindered from proceeding; impeded; intercepted.
STOPPER, n.
1. One who stops, closes, shuts or hinders; that which stops or obstructs; that which closes or fills a vent or hole in a vessel.
2. In seamens language, a short piece of rope used for making something fast, as the anchor or cables. Stoppers are also used to prevent the running rigging from coming up, whilst the men are belaying it.
STOPPER, v.t. To close with a stopper.
STOPPERED, pp. Closed with a stopper; as a stoppered retort.
STOPPING, ppr. Closing; shutting; obstructing; hindering from proceeding; ceasing to go or move; putting an end to; regulating the sounds of.
STOPPLE, n. That which stops or closes the mouth of a vessel; as a glass stopple; a cork stopple.
STORAGE, n. [from store.]
1. The act of depositing in a store or warehouse for safe keeping; or the safe keeping of goods in a warehouse.
2. The price charge or paid for keeping goods in a store.
STORAX, n. [L.] A plant or tree; also, a resinous and odoriferous drug brought from Turkey, but generally adulterated. It imparts to water a yellow color, and has been deemed a resolvent.
Storax is a solid balsam, either in red tears, or in large cakes, brittle, but soft to the touch, and of a reddish brown color. It is obtained from the Styrax officinalis, a tree which grows in the Levant. Liquid storax, or styrax, is a liquid or semifluid balsam, said to be obtained from the Liquidamber styraciflua, a tree which grows in Virginia. It is greenish, of an aromatic taste, and agreeable smell.
STORE, n.
1. A large number; as a store of years.
2. A large quantity; great plenty; abundance; as a store of wheat or provisions.
3. A stock provided; a large quantity for supply; ample abundance. The troops have great stores of provisions and ammunition. The ships have stores for a long voyage. [This the present usual acceptation of the word, and in this sense the plural, stores, is commonly used. When applied to a single article of supply, it is still sometimes used in the singular; as a good store of wine or of bread.]
4. Quantity accumulated; fund; abundance; as stores of knowledge.
5. A storehouse; a magazine; a warehouse. Nothing can be more convenient than the stores on Central wharf in Boston.
6. In the United States, shops for the sale of goods of any kind, by wholesale or retail, are often called stores.
In store, in a state of accumulation, in a literal sense; hence, in a state of preparation for supply; in a state of readiness. Happiness is laid up in store for the righteous; misery is in store for the wicked.
STORE, a. Hoarded; laid up; as store treasure. [Not in use.]
STORE, v.t.
1. To furnish; to supply; to replenish.
Wise Plato said the world with men was stord.
Her mind with thousand virtues stord.
2. To stock against a future time; as a garrison well stored with provisions.
One having stored a pond of four acres with carp, tench and other fish--
3. To reposit in a store or warehouse for preservation; to warehouse; as, to store goods.
STORED, pp.
1. Furnished; supplied.
2. Laid up in store; warehoused.
STORE-HOUSE, n. [store and house.]
1. A building for keeping grain or goods of any kind; a magazine; a repository; a warehouse.
Joseph opened all the store-houses and sold to the Egyptians. Genesis 41:56.
2. A repository.
The Scripture of God is a store-house abounding with inestimable treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
3. A great mass reposited. [Not in use.]
STORE-KEEPER, n. [store and keeper.] A man who has the care of a store.
STORER, n. One who lays op or forms a store.
STORIAL, a. [from story.] Historical. [Not in use.]
STORIED, a. [from story.]
1. Furnished with stories; adorned with historical paintings.
Some greedy minion or imperious wife, the trophied arches, storied halls, invade.
2. Related in story; told or recited in history.
STORIER, n. A relater of stories; a historian. [Not in use.]
STORIFY, v.t. To form or tell stories. [Not in use.]
STORK, n. A large fowl of the genus Ardea or Heron kind.
STORK’S-BILL, n. A plant of the genus Geranium.
STORM, n. [G., to disturb. L. The primary sense of storm is a rushing, raging or violent agitation.]
1. A violent wind; a tempest. Thus a storm of wind, is correct language, as the proper sense of the word is rushing, violence. It has primarily no reference to a fall of rain or snow. But as a violent wind is often attended with rain or snow, the word storm has come to be used, most improperly, for a fall of rain or snow without wind.
O beat those storms, and roll the seas in vain.
2. A violent assault on a fortified place; a furious attempt of troops to enter ad take a fortified place by scaling the walls, forcing the gates and the like.
3. Violent civil or political commotion; sedition; insurrection; also, clamor; tumult; disturbance of the public peace.
I will stir up in England some black storms.
Her sister began to scold and raise up such a storm--
4. Affliction; calamity; distress; adversity.
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate.
5. Violence; vehemence; tumultuous force.
STORM, v.t. To assault; to attack and attempt to take by scaling the walls, forcing gates or breaches and the like; as, to storm a fortified town.
STORM, v.i.
1. To raise a tempest.
2. To blow with violence; impersonally; as, it storms.
3. To rage; to be in a violent agitation of passion; to fume. The master storms.
STORM-BEAT, a. [storm and beat.] Beaten or impaired by storms.
STORMED, pp. Assaulted by violence.
STORMINESS, n. Tempestuousness; the state of being agitated by violent winds.
STORMING, ppr. Attacking with violent force; raging.
STORMY, a.
1. Tempestuous; agitated with furious winds; boisterous; as a stormy season; a stormy day or week.
2. Proceeding from violent agitation or fury; as a stormy sound; stormy shocks.
3. Violent; passionate. [Unusual.]
STORY, n. [L., Gr.]
1. A verbal narration or recital of a series of facts or incidents. WE observe in children a strong passion for hearing stories.
2. A written narrative of a series of facts or events. There is probably on record no story more interesting than that of Joseph in Genesis.
3. History; a written narrative or account of past transactions, whether relating to nations or individuals.
The four great monarchies make the subject of ancient story.
4. Petty tale; relation of a single incident or of trifling incidents.
5. A trifling tale; a fiction; a fable; as the story of a fairy. In popular usage, story is sometimes a softer term for a lie.
6. A loft; a floor; or a set of rooms on the same floor or level. A story comprehends the distance from one floor to another; as a story of nine or ten feet elevation. Hence each floor terminating the space is called a story; as a house of one story, of two stories, of five stories. The farm houses in New England have usually two stories; the houses in Paris have usually five stories; a few have more; those in London four. But in the United States the floor next the ground is the first story; in France and England, the first floor or story, is the second from the ground.
STORY, v.t.
1. To tell in historical relation; to narrate.
How worthy he is, I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.
It is storied of the brazen colossus in Rhodes, that it was seventy cubits high.
[This verb is chiefly used in the passive participle.]
2. To range one under another. [Little used.]
STORY-TELLER, n. [story and tell.]
1. One who tells stories; a narrator of a series of incidents; as an amusing story-teller.
2. A historian; in contempt.
3. One who tells fictitious stories.
STOT, n.
1. A horse. [Not in use.]
2. A young bullock or steer. [Not in use or local.]
STOTE. [See Stoat.]
STOUND, v.i.
1. To be in pain or sorrow. [Not in use.]
2. Stunned. [Not in use. See Astound.]
STOUND, n.
1. Sorrow; grief. [Not in use.]
2. A shooting pain. [Not in use.]
3. Noise. [Not in use.]
4. Astonishment; amazement. [Not in use.]
5. Hour; time; season. [Not in use.]
6. A vessel to put small beer in.
STOUR, n. A battle or tumult. Stour, signifies a river, as in Sturbridge.
STOUT, a.
1. Strong; lusty.
A stouter champion never handled sword.
2. Bold; intrepid; valiant; brave.
He lost the character of a bold, stout, magnanimous man.
3. Large; bulky. [A popular use of the word.]
4. Proud; resolute; obstinate.
The lords all stand to clear their cause, most resolutely stout.
5. Strong; firm; as a stout vessel.
STOUT, n. A cant name for strong beer.
STOUTLY, adv. Lustily; boldly; obstinately. He stoutly defended himself.
STOUTNESS, n.
1. Strength; bulk.
2. Boldness; fortitude.
3. Obstinacy; stubbornness.
STOVE, n. [G., a bagnio or hot house; a room; a stove. This primarily is merely a room, a place. See Stow.]
1. A hot house; a house or room artificially warmed.
2. A small box with an iron pan, used for holding coals to warm the feet. It is a bad practice for young persons to accustom themselves to sit with a warm stove under the feet.
3. An iron box, with various apartments in it for cooking; a culinary utensil of various forms.
STOVE, v.t. To keep warm in a house or room by artificial heat; as, to stove orange trees and myrtles.
STOVE, pret. of stave.
STOVER, n. [a contraction of estover.] Fodder for cattle; primarily, fodder from threshed grain; but in New England, any kind of fodder from the barn or stack.
STOW, v.t. [G. L., to crowd, to stuff; the handle of a plow. The sense is to set or throw down, from the more general sense of throwing, driving.]
1. To place; to put in a suitable place or position; as, to stow bags, bales or casks in a ships hold; to stow hay in a mow; to stow sheaves. The word has reference to the placing of many thing, or of one thing among many, or of a mass of things.
2. To lay up; to reposit.
Stow in names, signifies place, as in Barstow.
STOWAGE, n.
1. The act or operation of placing in a suitable position; or the suitable disposition of several things together. The stowage of a ships cargo to advantage requires no little skill. It is of great consequence to make good stowage. [This is the principal use of the word.]
2. Room for the reception of things to be reposited.
In every vessel there is stowage for immense treasures.
3. The state of being laid up. I am curious to have the plate and jewels in safe stowage.
4. Money paid for stowing goods. [Little used.]
STOWED, pp. Placed in due position or order; reposited.
STOWING, ppr. Placing in due position; disposing in good order.
STRABISM, n. [L., a squint-eyed person.] A squinting; the act or habit of looking asquint.
STRADDLE, v.i. To part the legs wide; to stand or walk with the legs far apart.
STRADDLE, v.t. To place one leg on one side and the other on the other of any thing; as, to straddle a fence or a horse.
STRADDLING, ppr. Standing or walking with the legs far apart; placing one leg on one side and the other on the other.
STRAGGLE, v.i. stragl. [This word seems to be formed on the root of stray. G., to pass, to migrate.]
1. To wander from the direct course or way; to rove. When troops are on the march, let not the men straggle.
2. To wander at large without an certain direction or object; to ramble.
The wolf spied a straggling kid.
3. To exuberate; to shoot too far in growth. Prune the straggling branches of the hedge.
4. To be dispersed; to be apart from any main body.
They came between Scylla and Charybdis and the straggling rocks.
STRAGGLER, n.
1. A wanderer; a rover; one that departs from the direct or proper course; one that rambles without any settled direction.
2. A vagabond; a wandering shiftless fellow.
3. Something that shoots beyond the rest or too far.
4. Something that stands by itself.
STRAGGLING, ppr. Wandering; roving; rambling; being in a separate position.
STRAHLSTEIN, n. [G., a beam or gleam, and stone. Another name of actinolite.]
STRAIGHT, a. [L., formed from the root of reach, stretch, right. It is customary to write straight, for direct or right, and strait, for narrow, but this is a practice wholly arbitrary, both being the same word. Strait we use in the sense in which it is used in the south of Europe. Both sense proceed from stretching, straining.]
1. Right, in a mathematical sense; direct; passing from one point to another by the nearest course; not deviating or crooked; as a straight line; a straight course; a straight piece of timber.
2. Narrow; close; tight; as a straight garment. [See Strait, as it is generally written.]
3. Upright; according with justice and rectitude; not deviating from truth or fairness.
STRAIGHT, adv. Immediately; directly; in the shortest time.
I know thy generous temper well; fling but the appearance of dishonor on it, it straight takes fire, and mounts into a blaze.
STRAIGHTEN, v.t.
1. To make straight; to reduce from a crooked to a straight form.
2. To make narrow, tense or close; to tighten.
3. To reduce to difficulties or distress.
STRAIGHTENED, pp. Made straight; made narrow.
STRAIGHTENER, n. He or that which straightens.
STRAIGHTENING, ppr. Making straight or narrow.
STRAIGHTLY, adv.
1. In a right line; not crookedly.
2. Tightly; closely.
STRAIGHTNESS, n.
1. The quality or state of being straight; rectitude.
2. Narrowness; tension; tightness.
STRAIGHTWAY, adv. [straight and way.] Immediately; without loss of time; without delay.
He took the damsel by the hand, and said to her, Talitha cumi--and straightway the damsel arose. Mark 5:42. [Straightways is obsolete.]
STRAIKS, n. Strong plates of iron on the circumference of a cannon wheel over the joints of the fellies.
STRAIN, v.t. [L. This word retains its original signification, to stretch.]
1. To stretch; to draw with force; to extend with great effort; as, to strain a rope; to strain the shrouds of a ship; to strain the chords of an instrument.
2. To cause to draw with force, or with excess of exertion; to injure by pressing with too much effort. He strained this horses or his oxen by overloading them.
3. To stretch violently or by violent exertion; as, to strain the arm or the muscles.
4. To put to the utmost strength. Men in desperate cases will strain themselves for relief.
5. To press or cause to pass through some porous substance; to purify or separate from extraneous matter by filtration; to filter; as, to strain milk. Water may be stained through sand.
6. To sprain; to injure by drawing or stretching.
Prudes decayd about may tack, strain their necks with looking back.
7. To make tighter; to cause to bind closer.
To strain his fetters with a stricter care.
8. To force; to constrain; to make uneasy or unnatural.
His mirth is forced and strained.
STRAIN, v.i.
1. To make violent efforts.
To build his fortune I will strain a little.
Straining with too weak a wing.
2. To be filtered. Water straining through sand becomes pure.
STRAIN, n.
1. A violent effort; a stretching or exertion of the limbs or muscles, or of any thing else.
2. An injury by excessive exertion, drawing or stretching.
3. Style; continued manner of speaking or writing; as the genius and strain of the book of Proverbs. So we say, poetic strains, lofty strains.
4. Song; note; sound; or a particular part of a tune.
Their heavenly harps a lower strain began.
5. Turn; tendency; inborn disposition.
Because heretics have a strain of madness, he applied her with some corporal chastisements.
6. Manner of speech or action.
Such take too high a strain at first.
7. Race; generation; descent.
He is of a noble strain. [Not in use.]
8. Hereditary disposition.
Intemperance and lust breed diseases, which propagated, spoil the strain of a nation. [Not in use.]
9. Rank; character. [Not in use.]
STRAINABLE, a. Capable of being strained [Not in use.]
STRAINED, pp. Stretched; violently exerted; filtered.
STRAINER, n. That through which any liquid passes for purification; an instrument for filtration.
The lacteals of animal bodies are the strainers to separate the pure emulsion from its feces. [This doctrine is now questioned.]
STRAINING, ppr. Stretching; exerting with violence; making great efforts; filtering.
STRAINING, n. The act of stretching; the act of filtering; filtration.
STRAINT, n. A violent stretching or tension. [Not in use.]
STRAIT, a. [See Straight.]
1. Narrow; close; not broad.
Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth to life, and few there be that find it. Matthew 7:14.
2. Close; intimate; as a strait degree of favor.
3. Strict; rigorous.
He now, forsooth, takes on him to reform some certain edicts, and some strait decrees.
4. Difficult; distressful.
5. Straight; not crooked.
STRAIT, n. [See Straight.]
1. A narrow pass or passage, either in a mountain or in the ocean, between continents or other portions of land; as the straits of Gibraltar; the straits of Magellan; the straits of Dover. [In this sense, the plural is more generally used than the singular, and often without any apparent reason or propriety.]
2. Distress; difficulty; distressing necessity; formerly written streight. [Used either in the singular or plural.]
Let no man who owns a providence, become desperate under any calamity or strait whatsoever.
Ulysses made use of the pretense of natural infirmity to conceal the straits he was in at that time in his thoughts.
STRAIT, v.t. To put to difficulties. [Not in use.]
STRAITEN, v.t.
1. To make narrow.
In narrow circuit, straitend by a foe.
2. To contract; to confine; as, to straiten the British commerce.
3. To make tense or tight; as, to straiten a cord.
4. To distress; to perplex; to press with poverty or other necessity; as, a man straitened in his circumstances.
5. To press by want of sufficient room.
Waters when straitened, as at the falls of bridges, give a roaring noise.
STRAIT-HANDED, a. [strait and hand.] Parsimonious; sparing; niggardly. [Not much used.]
STRAIT-HANDEDNESS, n. Niggardliness; parsimony.
STRAIT-LACED, a. [strait and lace.]
1. Griped with stays.
We have few well-shaped that are strait-laced.
2. Stiff; constrained. Hence,
3. Rigid in opinion; strict.
STRAITLY, adv.
1. Narrowly; closely.
2. Strictly; rigorously. [For this, strictly is now used.]
3. Closely; intimately.
STRAITNESS, n.
1. Narrowness; as the straitness of a place; straitness of mind; straitness of circumstances.
2. Strictness; rigor; as the straitness of a man’s proceedings.
3. Distress; difficulty; pressure from necessity of any kind, particularly from poverty.
4. Want; scarcity; or rather narrowness; as the straitness of the conveniences of life.
STRAIT-WAISTCOAT, STRAIT-JACKET, n. An apparatus to confine the limbs of a distracted person.
STRAKE, pret. of strike. [See Strike.]
STRAKE, n.
1. A streak. [Not used unless in reference to the range of planks in a ships side. See Streak.]
2. A narrow board. [Not used.]
3. The iron band of a wheel. [In the United States, this is called a band, or the tire of a wheel.]
STRAM, v.i. To spread out the limbs; to sprawl. [Local and vulgar.]
STRAMASH, v.t. To strike, beat or bang; to break; to destroy. [Local and vulgar.]
STRAMINEOUS, a. [L., straw.]
1. Strawy; consisting of straw.
2. Chaffy; like straw; light.
STRAND, n.
1. The shore or beach of the sea or ocean, or of a large lake, and perhaps of a navigable river. It is never used of the bank of a small river or pond. The Dutch on the Hudson apply it to a landing place; as the strand at Kingston.
2. One of the twists or parts of which a rope is composed.
STRAND, v.t.
1. To drive or run aground on the sea shore, as a ship.
2. To break one of the strands of a rope.
STRAND, v.i. To drift or be driven on shore; to run aground; as, a ship strands at high water.
STRANDED, pp.
1. Run ashore.
2. Having a strand broken.
STRANDING, ppr. Running ashore; breaking a strand.
STRANGE, a. [L.]
1. Foreign; belonging to anther country.
I do not contemn the knowledge of strange and divers tongues. [This sense is nearly obsolete.]
2. Not domestic; belonging to others.
So she impatient her own faults to see, turns from herself, and in strange things delights. [Nearly obsolete.]
3. New; not before known, heard or seen. The former custom was familiar; the latter was new and strange to them. Hence,
4. Wonderful; causing surprise; exciting curiosity. It is strange that men will not receive improvement, when it is shown to be improvement.
Sated at length, ere long I might perceive strange alteration in me.
5. Odd; unusual; irregular; not according to the common way.
Hes strange and peevish.
6. Remote. [Little used.]
7. Uncommon; unusual.
This made David to admire the law of god at that strange rate.
8. Unacquainted.
They were now at a gage, looking strange at one another.
9. Strange is sometimes uttered by way of exclamation.
Strange! What extremes should thus preserve the snow, high on the Alps, or in deep caves below.
This is an elliptical expression for it is strange.
STRANGE, v.t. To alienate; to estrange. [Not in use.]
STRANGE, v.i.
1. To wonder; to be astonished. [Not in use.]
2. To be estranged or alienated. [Not in use.]
STRANGELY, adv.
1. With some relation to foreigners.
2. Wonderfully; in a manner or degree to excite surprise or wonder.
How strangely active are the acts of peace.
It would strangely delight you to see with what spirit he converses.
STRANGENESS, n.
1. Foreignness; the state of belonging to another country.
If I will obey the gospel, no distance of place, no strangeness of country can make any man a stranger to me.
2. Distance in behavior; reserve; coldness; forbidding manner.
Will you not observe the strangeness of his alterd countenance?
3. Remoteness from common manners or notions; uncouthness.
Men worthier than himself here tend the savage strangeness he puts on.
4. Alienation of mind; estrangement; mutual dislike.
This might seem a means to continue a strangeness between two nations. [This sense is obsolete or little used.]
5. Wonderfulness; the power of exciting surprise and wonder; uncommonness that raises wonder by novelty.
This raised greater tumults in the hearts of men than the strangeness and seeming unreasonableness of all the former articles.
STRANGER, n.
1. A foreigner; one who belongs to another country. Paris and London are visited by strangers from all the countries of Europe.
2. One of another town, city, state or province in the same country. The Commencements in American colleges are frequented by multitudes of strangers from the neighboring towns and states.
3. One unknown. The gentleman is a stranger to me.
4. One unacquainted.
My child is yet a stranger to the world.
I was no stranger to the original.
5. A guest; a visitor.
6. One not admitted to any communication or fellowship.
Melons on beds of ice are taught to bear, and strangers to the sun yet ripen here.
7. In law, one not privy or party to an act.
STRANGER, v.t. To estrange; to alienate. [Not in use.]
STRANGLE, v.t. [L.]
1. To choke; to suffocate; to destroy life by stopping respiration.
Our Saxon ancestors compelled the adulteress to strangle herself.
2. To suppress; to hinder from birth or appearance.
STRANGLED, pp. Choked; suffocated; suppressed.
STRANGLER, n. One who strangles.
STRANGLES, n. Swellings in a horses throat.
STRANGLING, ppr. Choking; suffocating; suppressing.
STRANGLING, n. The act of destroying life by stopping respiration.
STRANGULATED, a. Compressed. A hernia or rupture is said to be strangulated, when it is so compressed as to cause dangerous symptoms.
STRANGULATION, n. [L.]
1. The act of strangling; the act of destroying life by stopping respiration; suffocation.
2. That kind of suffocation which is common to women in hysterics; also, the straitening or compression of the intestines in hernia.
STRANGURY, n. [L., Gr., a drop, urine.] Literally, a discharge of urine by drops; a difficulty of discharging urine, attended with pain.
STRAP, n. [L. Strap and strop appear to be from stripping, and perhaps stripe also; all having resemblance to a strip of bark peeled from a tree.]
1. A long narrow slip of cloth or lether, of various forms and for various uses; as the strap of a shoe or boot; straps for fastening trunks or other baggage, for stretching limbs in surgery, etc.
2. In botany, the flat part of the corollet in ligulate florets; also, an appendage to the leaf in some grasses.
STRAP, v.t.
1. To beat or chastise with a strap.
2. To fasten or bind with a strap.
3. To rub on a strap for sharpening, as a razor.
STRAPPADO, n. A military punishment formerly practiced. It consisted in drawing an offender to the top of a beam and letting him fall, by which means a limb was sometimes dislocated.
STRAPPADO, v.t. To torture.
STRAPPING, ppr.
1. Drawing on a strap, as a razor.
2. Binding with a strap.
3. a. Tall; lusty; as a strapping fellow.
STRAP-SHAPED, a. In botany, ligulate.
STRATA, n. plu. [See Stratum.] Beds; layers; as strata of sand, clay or coal.
STRATAGEM, n. [L., Gr., to lead an army.]
1. An artifice, particularly in war; a plan or scheme for deceiving an enemy.
2. An artifice; a trick by which some advantage is intended to be obtained.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem.
STRATEGE, STRATEGUS, n. [Gr.] An Athenian general officer.
STRATH, n. A vale, bottom or low ground between hills. [Not in use.]
STRATIFICATION, n. [from stratify.]
1. The process by which substances in the earth have been formed into strata or layers.
2. The state of being formed into layers in the earth.
3. The act of laying in strata.
STRATIFIED, pp. Formed into a layer, as a terrene substance.
STRATIFY, v.t. [L.]
1. To form into a layer, as substances in the earth. Thus clay, sand and other species of earth are often found stratified.
2. To lay in strata.