Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
TITLE — TONGUE
TITLE, n. [L. titulus. This may belong to the family of Gr. to set or put.]
1. An inscription put over any thing as a name by which it is known.
2. The inscription in the beginning of a book, containing the subject of the work, and sometimes the author’s name.
3. In the civil and canon laws, a chapter or division of a book.
4. An appellation of dignity, distinction or pre-eminence given to persons; as duke, marquis and the like.
5. A name; an appellation.
Ill worthy I such title should belong
To me transgressor.
6. Right; or that which constitutes a just cause of exclusive possession; that which is the foundation of ownership; as a good title to an estate; or an imperfect title. The lowest degree of title is naked possession, and lastly the right of property, all which united complete the title.
But possession is not essential to a complete title. A title to personal property may be acquired by occupancy. A claim is not a title.
7. The instrument which is evidence of a right.
8. In the canon law, that by which a beneficiary holds a benefice. This is true and valid, or colorable. A valid title gives a right to the benefice. A colorable title appears to be valid, but is not.
9. In ancient church records, a church to which a priest was ordained, and where he was to reside.
TITLE, v.t. To name; to call; to entitle.
TITLED, pp. Called; named.
1. a. Having a title.
TITLELESS, a. Not having a title or name. [Not in use.]
TITLE-PAGE, n. [title and page.] The page of a book which contains its title.
TITLING, ppr. Calling; denominating; entitling.
TITMOUSE, n. [tit, small, and mouse.] A small bird of the genus Parus.
TITTER, v.i. To laugh with the tongue striking against the root of the upper teeth; to laugh with restraint.
TITTER, n. A restrained laugh.
1. A weed.
TITTLE, n. [from tit, small.] A small particle; a minute part; a jot; an iota.
TITTLE-TATTLE, n. [tattle, doubled.]
1. Idle trifling talk; empty prattle.
2. An idle trifling talker. [Less proper.]
TITTLE-TATTLE, v.i. To talk idly; to prate.
TITUBATION, n. [L. titubo, to stumble.] The act of stumbling.
TITULAR, a. [L. titulus.]
1. Existing in title or name only; nominal; having or conferring the title only; as a titular king or prince.
2. Having the title to an office or dignity without discharging the duties of it.
Both Valerius and Austin were titular bishops.
TITULAR, TITULARY, n. A person invested with a title, in virtue of which he holds an office or benefice, whether he performs the duties of it or not.
TITULARITY, n. The state of being titular.
TITULARLY, adv. Nominally; by title only.
TITULARY, a. Consisting in a title.
1. Pertaining to a title.
TIVER, n. A kind of ocher which is used in marking sheep in some parts of England. [Local.]
TIVER, v.t. To mark sheep with tiver, in different ways and for different purposes. [Local.]
TIVERING, ppr. Marking with tiver. [Local.]
TIVERING, n. The act or practice of marking with tiver. [Local.]
TIVY, adv. [See Tantivy.] With great speed; a huntsman’s word or sound.
TO, prep.
1. Noting motion towards a place; opposed to from, or placed after another word expressing motion towards. He is going to church.
2. Noting motion towards a state or condition. He is going to a trade; he is rising to wealth and honor.
3. Noting accord or adaptation; as an occupation suited to his taste; she has a husband to her mind.
4. Noting address or compellation, or the direction of a discourse. These remarks were addressed to a large audience.
To you, my noble lord of Westmoreland;
I pledge your grace.
5. Noting attention or application.
Go, buckle to the law.
Meditate upon these things; give yourself wholly to them. 1 Timothy 4:15.
6. Noting addition.
Add to your faith, virtue. 2 Peter 1:5.
Wisdom he has, and to his wisdom, courage.
7. Noting opposition. They engaged hand to hand.
8. Noting amount, rising to. They met us, to the number of three hundred.
9. Noting proportion; as, three is to nine as nine is to twenty seven. It is ten to one that you will offend by your officiousness.
10. Noting possession or appropriation. We have a good seat; let us keep it to ourselves.
11. Noting perception; as a substance sweet to the taste; an event painful to the mind.
12. Noting the subject of an affirmation.
I have a king’s oath to the contrary.
13. In comparison of.
All that they did was piety to this.
14. As far as.
Few of the Esquimaux can count to ten.
15. Noting intention.
--Marks and points out each man of us to slaughter.
[In this sense, for is now used.]
16. After an adjective, noting the object; as deaf to the cries of distress; alive to the sufferings of the poor. He was attentive to the company or to the discourse.
17. Noting obligation; as duty to God and to our parents.
18. Noting enmity; as a dislike to spiritus liquors.
19. Towards; as, she stretched her arms to heaven.
20. Noting effect or end. The prince was flattered to his ruin. He engaged in a war to this cost. Violent factions exist to the prejudice of the state.
Numbers were crowded to death.
21. To, as a sign of the infinitive, precedes the radical verb. Sometimes it is used instead of the ancient form, for to, noting purpose. David in his life time intended to build a temple. The legislature assembles annually to make and amend laws. The court will sit in February to try some important causes.
22. It precedes the radical verb after adjectives, noting the object; as ready to go; prompt to obey; quick to hear, but slow to censure.
23. It precedes the radical verb, noting the object.
The delay of our hopes teaches us to mortify our desires.
24. It precedes the radical verb, noting consequence.
I have done my utmost to lead my life so pleasantly as to forget my misfortunes.
25. It notes extent, degree or end. He languishes to death, even to death. The water rises to the highth of twenty feet. The line extends from one end to the other.
26. After the substantive verb, and with the radical verb, it denotes futurity. The construction, we are to meet at ten o’clock, every man at death is to receive the reward of his deeds, is a particular form of expressing future time.
27. After have, it denotes duty or necessity.
I have a debt to pay on Saturday.
28. To-day, to-night, to-morrow, are peculiar phrases derived from our ancestors. To in the two first, has the sense or force of this; this day, this night. In the last, it is equivalent to in or on; in or on the morrow. The words may be considered as compounds, to-day, to-night, to-morrow, and usually as adverbs. But sometimes they are used as nouns; as, to-day is ours.
To and from, backward and forward. In this phrase, to is adverbial.
To the face, in presence of; not in the absence of.
I withstood him face to face. Galatians 2:11.
To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.
[Note.--In the foregoing explanation of to, it is to be considered that the definition given is not always the sense of to by itself, but the sense rather of the word preceding it, or connected with it, or of to in connection with other words. In general, to is used in the sense of moving towards a place, or towards an object, or it expresses direction towards a place, end, object or purpose.]
To is often used adverbially to modify the sense of verbs; as, to come to; to heave to. The sense of such phrases is explained under the verbs respectively.
In popular phrases like the following, “I will not come; you shall to, or too, a genuine Saxon phrase, to denotes moreover, besides, L. insuper.
TOAD, n. A paddoc, an animal of the genus Rana, the Rana Bufo of Linne; a small clumsy animal, the body warty, thick and disgusting to the sight, but perfectly harmless, and indeed it is said to be useful in gardens by feeding on noxious worms.
TOADEATER, n. A vulgar name given to a fawning, obsequious parasite; a mean sycophant.
TOADFISH, n. [toad and fish.] A fish of the genus Lophius, the fishing frog.
TOAD-FLAX, n. [toad and flax.] A plant of the genus Antirrhinum; snap-dragon; calves’snout.
TOADISH, a. Like a toad. [Not used.]
TOAD-STONE, n. [toad and stone.] In mineralogy, a sort of trap rock, of a brownish gray color. The toad-stone of Derbyshire is generally a dark brown basaltic amygdaloid, composed of basalt and green earth, and containing oblong cavities filled with calcarious spar.
TOAD-STOOL, n. [toad and stoll.] A sort of fungous plant that grows in moist and rich grounds like a mushroom.
TOAST, v.t. [L. tostus.]
1. To dry and scorch by the heat of a fire; as, to toast bread or cheese. [It is chiefly limited in its application to these two articles.]
2. To warm thoroughly; as, to toast the feet. [Not much used.]
3. To name when a health is drank; to drink to the health in honor of; as, to toast a lady. Addison writes “to toast the health;” a form of expression I believe not now used.
TOAST, n. Bread dried and scorched by the fire; or such bread dipped in melted butter, or in some liquor. Dry toast is bread scorched, or it is scorched bread with butter spread upon it. Soft toast is made by immersing toasted bread in melted butter, and called dipped toast.
1. A female whose health is drank in honor or respect.
The wise man’s passion, and the vain man’s toast.
2. He or that which is named in honor in drinking.
TOASTED, pp. Scorched by heat; named in drinking the health.
TOASTER, n. One who toasts.
1. An instrument for toasting bread or cheese.
TOASTING, ppr. Scorching by fire; drinking to the honor of.
TOBACCO, n. [so named from Tabaco, a province of Yucatan, in Spanish America, where it was first found by the Spaniards.]
A plant, a native of America, of the genus Nicotiana, much used for smoking and chewing and in snuff. As a medicine, it is narcotic. Tobacco has a strong disagreeable smell, and an acrid taste. When first used it sometimes occasions vomiting; but the practice of using it in any form, soon conquers distaste, and forms a relish for it that is strong and almost unconquerable.
TOBACCONIST, n. A dealer in tobacco; also, a manufacturer of tobacco.
TOBACCO-PIPE, n. [tobacco and pipe.] A pipe used for smoking tobacco, often made of clay and baked, sometimes of other material.
TOBACCO-PIPE CLAY, n. A species of clay; called also cimolite.
TOBACCO-PIPE FISH, n. A name of the Syngnathus Acus of Linne; called also needle-fish.
TOCKAY, n. A species of spotted lizard in India.
TOCSIN, n. An alarm bell, or the ringing of a bell for the purpose of alarm.
TOD, n.
1. A bush; a thick shrub.
2. A quantity of wool of twenty eight pounds, or two stone.
3. A fox.
TOD, v.t. To weigh; to produce a tod. [Not in use.]
TODAY, n. [to and day.] The present day.
TODDY, n. A juice drawn from various kinds of the palm in the E. Indies; or a liquor prepared from it.
1. A mixture of spirit and water sweetened. Toddy differs from grog in having a greater proportion of spirit, and in being sweetened.
TODY, n. A genus of insectivorous birds, of the order of Picae; natives of warm climates.
TOE, n. [L. digitus. Toe is contracted from tog, the primary word on which L. digitus is formed, coinciding with dug, and signifying a shoot.]
1. One of the small members which form the extremity of the foot, corresponding to a finger on the hand. The toes in their form and structure resemble the fingers, but are shorter.
2. The fore part of the hoof of a horse, and of other hoofed animals.
3. The member of a beast’s foot corresponding to the toe in man.
TIFORE, prep. or adv. Before; formerly.
TOFT, n. [probably from the root of tuft.]
1. A grove of trees.
2. In law books, a place where a messuage has stood, but is decayed.
TOGATED, TOGED, a. [L. toga, a gown; togatus, gowned.] Gowned; dressed in a gown; wearing a gown; as toged consuls.
TOGETHER, adv.
1. In company. We walked together to the wood.
2. In or into union.
The king joined humanity and policy together.
3. In the same place; as, to live together in one house.
4. In the same time; as, to live together in the same age.
5. In concert; as, the allies made war upon France together.
6. Into junction or a state of union; as, to sew, knit, pin or fasten two things together; to mix things together.
Together with, in union with; in company or mixture with.
Take the bad together with the good.
TOGGEL, n. A small wooden pin tapering towards both ends.
TOIL, v.i. To labor; to work; to exert strength with pain and fatigue of body or mind, particularly of the body, with efforts of some continuance or duration.
Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing. Luke 5:5.
TOIL, v.t. To toil out, to labor; to work out.
Toil’d out my uncouth passage--
1. To weary; to overlabor; as toil’d with works of war.
[Not in use nor proper.]
TOIL, n. Labor with pain and fatigue; labor that oppresses the body or mind. Toil may be the labor of the field or the workshop, or of the camp. What toils men endure for the acquisition of wealth, power and honor! Genesis 5:29.
TOIL, n. [L. tela, a web; from spreading, extending or laying.]
A net or snare; any thread, web or string spread for taking prey.
A fly falls into the toils of a spider.
TOILER, n. One who toils, or labors with pain.
TOILET, n.
1. A covering or cloth of linen, silk or tapestry, spread over a table in a chamber or dressing room. Hence,
2. A dressing table.
TOILING, ppr. Laboring with pain.
TOILSOME, a. Laborious; wearisome; attended with fatigue and pain; as toilsome work; a toilsome task.
What can be toilsome in these pleasant walks?
1. Producing toil; as a toilsome day or journey.
TOILSOMENESS, n. Laboriousness; wearisomeness.
TOISE, n. tois. A fathom or long measure in France, containing six feet; but the French foot is longer than the English, 76 being equal to 81 English feet.
TOKAY, n. A kind of wine produced at Tokay in Hungary, made of white grapes. It is distinguished from other wines by its aromatic taste. It is not good till it is about three years old, and it continues to improve as long as it is kept.
TOKEN, n. to’kn. [L. signum, dialetically varied, or from the same radix.]
1. A sign; something intended to represent or indicate another thing or an event. Thus the rainbow is a token of God’s covenant established with Noah. The blood of the paschal lamb, sprinkled on the doors of the Hebrews, was a token to the destroying angel of God’s will that he should pass by those houses. Genesis 9:12-13; Exodus 12:13.
Show me a token for good. Psalm 86:17.
2. A mark. In pestilential diseases, tokens are livid spots upon the body, which indicate the approach of death.
3. A memorial of friendship; something by which the friendship of another person is to be kept in mind.
4. In coinage, tokens were coins struck in the reign of Elizabeth in the cities of Bristol, Oxford and Worcester, and also by private persons, which were put into circulation, and upon being returned, the issuer gave the value of them in current money.
5. In printing, ten quires of paper; an extra quire is usually added to every other token, when counted out for the press.
TOKEN, v.t. To make known. [Not in use.]
TOKENED, a. Being marked with spots.
TOL, v.t. [L. tollo.] To take away; a law term.
TOLA, n. In India, a weight for gold and silver, but different in different places.
TOLD, pret. and pp. of tell.
Who told thee that thou wast naked? Genesis 3:11.
Thou hast mocked me, and told me lies. Judges 16:10.
--Sheep and oxen that could not be told. 1 Kings 8:5.
TOL-BOOTH. [See Toll-booth.]
TOLE, v.t. To draw or cause to follow by presenting something pleasing or desirable to view; to allure by some bait. Thus our farmers tole sheep and make them follow, by holding to them a measure of corn or some portion of fodder. In New England, it is applied only to the alluring of beasts. Locke has applied it to men.
TOLED, pp. Drawn; allured; induced to follow.
TOLERABLE, a. [L. tolerabilis. See Tolerate.]
1. That may be borne or endured; supportable, either physically or mentally. The cold in Canada is severe, but tolerable. The insults and indignities of our enemies are not tolerable.
It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city. Matthew 10:15.
2. Moderately good or agreeable; not contemptible; not very excellent or pleasing, but such as can be borne or received without disgust, resentment or opposition; as a tolerable translation; a tolerable entertainment; a tolerable administration.
TOLERABLENESS, n. The state of being tolerable.
TOLERABLY, adv. Supportably; in a manner to be endured.
1. Moderately well; passably; not perfectly; as a constitution tolerably firm. The advocate speaks tolerably well.
TOLERANCE, n. [L. tolerantia, from tolero, to bear.] The power or capacity of enduring; or the act of enduring.
Diogenes one frosty morning came to the market place shaking, to show his tolerance.
[Little used. But intolerance is in common use.]
TOLERANT, a. Enduring; indulgent; favoring toleration.
TOLERATE, v.t. [L. tolero, from tollo, to lift.] To suffer to be or to be done without prohibition or hinderance; to allow or permit negatively, by not preventing; not to restrain; as, to tolerate opinions or practices. The protestant religion is tolerated in France, and the Roman Catholic in Great Britain.
Crying should not be tolerated in children.
The law of love tolerates no vice, and patronizes every virtue.
TOLERATED, pp. Suffered; allowed; not prohibited or restrained.
TOLERATING, ppr. Enduring; suffering to be or to be done; allowing; not restraining.
TOLERATION, n. [L. toleratio.] The act of tolerating; the allowance of that which is not wholly approved; appropriately, the allowance of religious opinions and modes of worship in a state, when contrary to or different from those of the established church or belief. Toleration implies a right in the sovereign to control men in their opinions and worship, or it implies the actual exercise of power in such control. Where no power exists or none is assumed to establish a creed and a mode of worship, there can be no toleration, in the strict sense of the word, for one religious denomination has as good a right as another to the free enjoyment of its creed and worship.
TOLL, n. [Gr. toll, custom, and end, exit, from cutting off; Eng. dole; diolam, to sell, to exchange, to pay toll. This is from the root of deal. See Deal.]
1. A tax paid for some liberty or privilege, particularly for the privilege of passing over a bridge or on a highway, or for that of vending goods in a fair, market or the like.
2. A liberty to buy and sell within the bounds of a manor.
3. A portion of grain taken by a miller as a compensation for grinding.
TOLL, v.i. To pay toll or tallage.
1. To take toll, as by a miller.
TOLL, v.i. To sound or ring, as a bell, with strokes uniformly repeated at intervals, as at funerals, or in calling assemblies, or to announce the death of a person.
Now sink in sorrows with a tolling bell.
TOLL, v.t. [supra.] To cause a bell to sound with strokes slowly and uniformly repeated, as for summoning public bodies or religious congregations to their meetings, or for announcing the death of a person, or to give solemnity to a funeral. Tolling is a different thing from ringing.
TOLL, v.t. [L. tollo.] To take away; to vacate; to annul; a law term.
1. To draw. [See Tole.]
TOLL, n. A particular sounding of a bell.
TOLL-BAR, n. [toll and bar.] A bar or beam used for stopping boats on a canal at the toll-house.
TOLL-BOOTH, n. [toll and booth.] A place where goods are weighed to ascertain the duties or toll.
1. A prison.
TOLL-BOOTH, v.t. To imprison in a toll-booth.
TOLL-BRIDGE, n. A bridge where toll is paid for passing it.
TOLL-GATE, n. A gate where toll is taken.
TOLL-GATHERER, n. The man who takes toll.
TOLL-HOUSE, n. A house or shed placed by a road near a toll-gate, or at the end of a toll-bridge, or by a canal, where the man who takes the toll remains.
TOLLING, ppr. Causing to sound in a slow grave manner.
1. Taking away; removing.
2. Sounding, as a bell.
TOLU BALSAM, n. Balsam of Tolu, a balsam produced from a tree growing in Tolu, in S. America.
TOLUTATION, n. [L. toluto.] A pacing or ambling. [Not used.]
TOMAHAWK, n. An Indian hatchet.
TOMAHAWK, v.t. To cut or kill with a hatchet called a tomahawk.
TOMATO, n. A plant, and its fruit, a species of Solanum. It is called sometimes the love-apple.
TOMB, n. toom. [L. tumulus, a heap or hillock; tumeo, to swell.]
1. A grave; a pit in which the dead body of a human being is deposited.
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
2. A house or vault formed wholly or partly in the earth, with walls and a roof for the reception of the dead.
3. A monument erected to preserve the memory of the dead.
TOMB, v.t. To bury; to inter. [See Entomb.]
TOMBAC, n. A white allow of copper; a metallic composition made by mixing and fusing together a large quantity of zink with a smaller quantity of copper, with arsenic.
TOMBLESS, a. Destitute of a tomb or sepulchral monument.
TOMBOY, n. [Tom, Thomas, and boy.] A rude boisterous boy; also in sarcasm, a romping girl. [Vulgar.]
TOMBSTONE, n. [tomb and stone.] A stone erected over a grave, to preserve the memory of the deceased; a monument.
TOME, n. [Gr. a piece or section, to cut off.] A book; as many writings as are bound in a volume, forming the part of a larger work. It may be applied to a single volume.
TOMENTOUS, a. [L. tomentum, down.] In botany, downy; nappy; cottony; or flocky; covered with hairs so close as scarcely to be discernible, or with a whitish down, like wool; as a tomentous stem or leaf.
TO-MORROW, n. [to and morrow.] The day after the present.
One to-day is worth two to-morrows.
TOMPION, n. The stopper of a cannon. [See Tampion.]
TOMTIT, n. A little bird, the titmouse.
TON, the termination of names of places, is town.
TON, n. The prevailing fashion.
TON, n. The weight of twenty hundred gross. [See Tun.] This is false orthography. The word is from the Saxon tunna, a cask, and the sense of weight is taken from that of a cask or butt.
TONE, n. [L. tonus; Gr. sound; L. tono; Gr. to sound, to strain or stretch. The L. sonus is probably the same word in a different dialect.]
1. Sound, or modification of sound; any impulse or vibration of the air which is perceptible by the ear; as a low tone, high tone, or loud tone; a grave tone; an acute tone; a sweet tone; a harsh tone.
2. Accent; or rather, a particular inflection of the voice, adapted to express emotion or passion; a rhetorical sense of the word.
Eager his tone, and ardent were his eyes.
3. A whining sound; a whine; a kind of mournful strain of voice; as, children often read with a tone.
4. An affected sound in speaking.
5. In music, an interval of sound; as, the difference between the diapente and diatessaron, is a tone. Of tones there are two kinds, major and minor. The tone major is in the ratio of 8 to 9, which results from the difference between the fourth and fifth. The tone minor is as 9 to 10, resulting from the difference between the minor third and the fourth.
6. The tone of an instrument, is its peculiar sound with regard to softness, evenness and the like.
7. In medicine, that state of organization in a body, in which the animal functions are healthy and performed with due vigor. Tone, in its primary signification, is tension, and tension is the primary signification of strength. Hence its application to the natural healthy state of animal organs. Tone therefore in medicine, is the strength and activity of the organs, from which proceed healthy functions. So we say, the body is in a sound state, the health is sound or firm.
TONE, v.t. To utter with an affected tone.
1. To tune. [See Tune.]
TONED, a. Having a tone; used in composition; as high-toned; sweet-toned.
TONELESS, a. Having no tone; unmusical.
TONE-SYLLABLE, a. An accented syllable.
TONG, n. [See Tongs.] The catch of a buckle. [Not used.] [See Tongue.]
TONGS, n. plu. An instrument of metal, consisting of two parts or long shafts joined at one end; used for handling things, particularly fire or heated metals. We say, a pair of tongs, a smith’s tongs.
TONGUE, TUNG, n. [Ant. L. tingua; digitus and dug. Our common orthography is incorrect; the true spelling is tung.]
1. In man, the instrument of taste, and the chief instrument of speech; and in other animals, the instrument of taste. It is also an instrument of deglutition. In some animals, the tongue is used for drawing the food into the mouth, as in animals of the bovine genus, etc. Other animals lap their drink, as dogs.
The tongue is covered with membranes, and the outer one is full of papillae of a pyramidical figure, under which lies a thin, soft, reticular coat perforated with innumerable holes, and always lined with a thick and white or yellowish mucus.
2. Speech; discourse; sometimes, fluency of speech.
Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together.
3. The power of articulate utterance; speech.
Parrots imitating human tongue.
4. Speech, as well or ill used; mode of speaking.
Keep a good tongue in thy head.
The tongue of the wise is health. Proverbs 12:18.
5. A language; the whole sum of words used by a particular nation. The English tongue, within two hundred years, will probably be spoken by two or three hundred millions of people in North America.
6. Speech; words or declarations only; opposed to thoughts or actions.
Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18.
7. A nation, as distinguished by their language.
I will gather all nations and tongues. Isaiah 66:18.
8. A point; a projection; as the tongue of a buckle or of a balance.
9. A point or long narrow strip of land, projecting from the main into a sea or a lake.
10. The taper part of any thing; in the rigging of a ship, a short piece of rope spliced into the upper part of standing backstays, etc. to the size of the mast-head.
To hold the tongue, to be silent.
TONGUE, TUNG, v.t. To chide; to scold.
How might she tongue me.