Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
WARPING-BANK — WATER-FOX
WARPING-BANK, n. A bank or mound of earth raised round a field for retaining the water let in from the sea. [Local.]
WARPING-CLOUGH, WARPING-HATCH, WARPING-SLUICE, n. A flood gate to let in tide water upon land. [Local.]
WARPING-CUT, WARPING-DRAIN, WARPING-GUTTER, n. An open passage or channel for discharging the water from lands inundated. [Local.]
WARPING-HOOK, n. A hook used by rope-makers for hanging the yarn on, when warping into hauls for tarring.
WARPING-POST, n. A strong post used in warping rope yarn.
WARPROOF, n. [war and proof.] Valor tried by war.
WARRANT, v.t. [The primary sense of the root is to stop or hold, or to repel, and thus guard by resisting danger; as we say, to keep off. Hence the sense of security. See Guard and Garrison.]
1. To authorize; to give authority or power to do or forbear any thing, by which the person authorized is secured or saved harmless from any loss or damage by the act. A commission warrants an officer to seize an enemy. We are not warranted to resist legitimate government. Except in extreme cases.
2. To maintain; to support by authority or proof.
Reason warrants it, and we may safely receive it as true.
3. To justify.
True fortitude is seen in great exploits, that justice warrants, and that wisdom guides.
4. To secure; to exempt; to privilege.
Ill warrant him from drowning.
In a place less warranted than this, or less secure, I cannot be--
5. To declare with assurance.
My neck is as smooth as silk, I warrant ye.
6. In law, to secure to a grantee an estate granted; to assure.
7. To secure to a purchaser of goods the title to the same; or to indemnify him against loss.
8. To secure to a purchaser the good quality of the goods sold. [See Warranty.]
9. To assure that a thing is what it appears to be, which implies a covenant to make good any defect or loss incurred by it.
WARRANT, n.
1. An act, instrument or obligation, by which one person authorizes another to do something which he has not otherwise a right to do; an act or instrument investing one with a right or authority, and thus securing him from loss or damage; a word of general application.
2. A precept authorizing an officer to seize an offender and bring him to justice. A general warrant to seize suspected persons, is illegal.
3. Authority; power that authorizes or justifies any act. Those who preach the gospel have the warrant of Scripture. We have the warrant of natural right to do what the laws do not forbid; but civility and propriety may sometimes render things improper, which natural right warrants.
4. A commission that gives authority, or that justifies.
5. A voucher; that which attests or proves.
6. Right; legality.
Theres warrant in that theft which steals itself when theres no mercy left.
7. A writing which authorizes a person to receive money or other thing.
Warrant of attorney, that by which a man appoints another to act in his name, and warrants his transaction.
Land warrant, is an instrument or writing issued by the proper officer, authorizing a person to locate or take up a tract of new or uncultivated land.
Search warrant, a precept authorizing a person to enter houses, shops, etc. to search for a criminal, for stolen or smuggled goods.
Warrant officer, an officer holding a warrant from the navy board, such as the master, surgeon, purser, etc. of a ship.
WARRANTABLE, a. Authorized by commission, precept or right; justifiable; defensible. The seizure of a thief is always warrantable by law and justice. Falsehood is never warrantable.
His meals are coarse and short, his employment warrantable.
WARRANTABLENESS, n. The quality of being justifiable.
WARRANTABLY, adv. In a manner that may be justified; justifiably.
WARRANTED, pp. Authorized; justified; secured; assured by covenant or by implied obligation.
WARRANTEE, n. The person to whom land or other thing is warranted.
WARRANTER, n.
1. One who gives authority or legally empowers.
2. One who assures, or covenants to assure; one who contracts to secure another in a right, or to make good any defect of title or quality; as the warranter of a horse.
WARRANTING, ppr.
1. Authorizing; empowering.
2. Assuring; securing to another a right, or covenanting to make good a defect of title in lands, or of quality in goods.
WARRANTISE, n. Authority; security. [Not in use.]
WARRANTOR, n. One who warrants.
WARRANTY, n.
1. In law, a promise or covenant by deed, made by the bargainer for himself and his heirs, to warrant or secure the bargainee and his heirs against all men in the enjoyment of an estate or other thing granted. Such warranty passes from the seller to the buyer, from the feoffor to the feoffee, and from the releaser to the releasee. Warranty is real, when annexed to lands and tenements granted in fee or for life, etc. And is in deed or in law; and personal, when it respects goods sold or their quality.
In common recoveries, a fictitious person is called to warranty. In the sale of goods or personal property, the seller warrants the title; the warranty is express or implied. If a man sells goods which are not his own, or which he has no right to sell, the purchaser may have satisfaction for the injury. And if the seller expressly warrants the goods to be sound and not defective, and they prove to be otherwise, he must indemnify the purchaser; of the law implies a contract in the warranty, to make good any defect. But the warranty must be at the time of sale, and not afterwards.
2. Authority; justificatory mandate or precept.
If they disobey any precept, that is no excuse to us, nor gives us any warranty to disobey likewise. [In this sense, warrant is now used.]
3. Security.
The stamp was a warranty of the public.
WARRANTY, v.t. To warrant; to guaranty. [A useless word.]
WARRAY, v.t. To make war upon.
WARRE, a. Worse.
WARREN, n. [See Guard, Warrant and Wary.]
1. A piece of ground appropriated to the breeding and preservation of rabbits.
2. In law, a franchise or place privileged by prescription or grant from the king, for keeping beasts and fowls. The warren is the next franchise in degree to the park; and a forest, which is the highest in dignity, comprehends a chase, a park and a free warren.
3. A place for keeping fish in a river.
WARRENER, n. The keeper of a warren.
WARRIANGLE, n. A hawk.
WARRIOR, n.
1. In a general sense, a soldier; a man engaged in military life.
2. Emphatically, a brave man; a good soldier.
WARRIORESS, n. A female warrior.
WART, n. Waurt. [G.]
1. A hard excrescence on the skin of animals, which is covered with the production of the cuticle. In horses, warts are spungy excrescences on the hinder pasterns, which suppurate.
2. A protuberance on trees.
WARTED, a. In botany, having little knobs on the surface; verrucose; as a warted capsule.
WARTWORT, n. A plant of the genus Euphorbia or spurge, which is studded with hard warty knobs; also, a plant of the genus Heliotropium, and another of the genus Lapsana.
WARTY, a.
1. Having warts; full of warts; overgrown with warts; as a warty leaf.
2. Of the nature of warts.
WAR-WORN, a. [war and worn.] Worn with military service; as a war-worn coat; a war-worn soldier.
WARY, a. [See Ware and Warn.] Cautious of danger; carefully watching and guarding against deception, artifices and dangers; scrupulous; timorously prudent. Old men are usually more wary than the young. It is incumbent on a general in war to be always wary.
WAS, s. as z.; the past tense of the substantive verb; L., to be, to exist, whence English is, in the present tense, and was in the past; as, I was; he was.
WASH, v.t. [G.]
1. To cleanse by ablution, or by rubbing in water; as, to wash the hands or the body; to wash garments.
2. To wet; to fall on and moisten; as, the rain washes the flowers or plants.
3. To overflow. The tides wash the meadows.
4. To overflow or dash against; to cover with water; as, the waves wash the strand or shore; the sea washes the rocks on the shore or beach.
5. To scrub in water; as, to wash a deck or a floor.
6. To separate extraneous matter from; as, to wash ore; to wash grain.
7. In painting, to lay a color over any work with a pencil, to give it the proper tints, and make it appear more natural. Thus work is washed with a pale red to imitate brick, etc.
8. To rub over with some liquid substance; as, to wash trees for removing insects or diseases.
9. To squeeze and cleanse in water; as, to wash wool. So sheep are said to be washed, when they are immersed in water and their wool squeezed, by which means it is cleansed.
10. To cleanse by a current of water; as, showers wash the streets.
11. To overlay with a thin coat of metal; as steel washed with silver.
12. To purify from the pollution of sin.
But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified. 1 Corinthians 6:11.
To wash a ship, to bring all her guns to one side to make her heel, and then to wash and scrape her side.
WASH, v.i.
1. To perform the act of ablution.
Wash in Jordan seven times. 2 Kings 5:10. [Elliptical.]
2. To perform the business of cleansing clothes in water.
She can wash and scour.
To wash off, in calico-printing, to soak and rinse printed calicoes, to dissolve and remove the gum and paste.
WASH, n.
1. Alluvial matter; substances collected and deposited by water; as the wash of a river.
2. A bog; a marsh; a fen.
Neptunes salt wash.
3. A cosmetic; as a wash for the face, to help the complexion.
4. A lotion; a medical liquid preparation for external application.
5. A superficial stain or color.
6. Waste liquor of a kitchen for hogs.
7. The act of washing the clothes of a family; or the whole quantity washed at once. There is a great wash, or a small wash.
8. With distillers, the fermentable liquor made b dissolving the proper subject for fermentation and distillation in common water. In the distillery of malt, the wash is made by mixing the water hot, with the malt ground into meal.
9. The shallow part of a river, or arm of the sea; as the wastes in Lincolnshire.
10. The blade of an oar; the thin part, which enters the water and by whose impulse the boat is moved.
11. The color laid on a picture to vary its tints.
12. A substance laid on boards or other work for beauty or preservation.
13. A thin coat of metal.
14. In the west Indies, a mixture of dunder, molasses, water and scummings, for distillation.
WASH-BALL, n. [wash and ball.] A ball of soap, to be used in washing the hands or face.
WASH-BOARD, n. [wash and board.]
1. A broad thin plank, fixed occasionally on the top of a boat or other small vessels side, to prevent the sea from breaking over; also, a piece of plank on the sill of a lower deck port for the same purpose.
2. A board in a room, next to the floor.
WASHED, pp.
1. Cleansed in water; purified.
2. Overflowed; dashed against with water.
3. Covered over with a thin coat, as of metal.
WASHER, n.
1. One who washes.
2. An iron ring between the nave of a wheel and the linch-pin.
WASHER-WOMAN, n. A woman that washes clothes for others or for hire.
WASHING, ppr. Cleansing with water; purifying; overflowing; overspreading.
WASHING, n.
1. The act of cleansing with water; ablution. Hebrews 9:10.
2. A wash; or the clothes washed.
WASH-POT, n. A vessel in which any thing is washed.
WASH-TUB, n. A tub in which clothes are washed.
WASHY, a. [from wash.]
1. Watery; damp; soft; as the washy ooze.
2. Weak; not solid.
3. Weak; not firm or hardy; liable to sweat profusely with labor; as a washy horse. [New England.]
WASP, n. [G., L.] In entomology, a genus of insects, Vespa, of the order of Hymenopters. The mouth is horny, the jaw compressed, without a proboscis; the feelers four, unequal and filiform; the eyes lunated; the body smooth; the sting concealed, and the upper wings plicated. Wasps construct combs, and rear their young in the cells. The sting is painful.
WASP-FLY, n. A species of fly resembling a wasp, but having no sting, and but two wings.
WASPISH, a. Snappish; petulant; irritable; irascible; quick to resent any trifling affront.
Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race.
WASPISHLY, adv. Petulantly; in a snappish manner.
WASPISHNESS, n. Petulance; irascibility; snappishness.
WASSAIL, n.
1. A liquor made of apples, sugar and ale, formerly much used by English good fellows.
2. A drunken bout.
3. A merry song. [This word in unknown in America.]
WASSAIL, v.i. To hold a merry drinking meeting.
WASSAIL-BOWL, n. A bowl for holding wassail.
WASSAIL-CUP, n. A cup in which wassail was carried to the company.
WASSAILER, n. A toper; a drunkard.
WAST, past tense of the substantive verb, in the second person; as, thou wast.
WASTE, v.t. [G., L.]
1. To diminish by gradual dissipation or loss. Thus disease wastes the patient; sorrows waste the strength and spirits.
2. To cause to be lost; to destroy by scattering or by injury. Thus cattle waste their fodder when fed in the open field.
3. To expend without necessity or use; to destroy wantonly or luxuriously; to squander; to cause to be lost through wantonness or negligence. Careless people waste their fuel, their food or their property. Children waster their inheritance.
And wasted his substance with riotous living. Luke 15:13.
4. To destroy in enmity; to desolate; as, to waste an enemys country.
5. To suffer to be lost unnecessarily; or to throw away; as, to waste the blood and treasure of a nation.
6. To destroy by violence.
The Tyber insults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds.
7. To impair strength gradually.
Now wasting years my former strength confounds.
8. To lose in idleness or misery; to wear out.
Here condemnd to waste eternal days in woe and pain.
9. To spend; to consume.
O were I able to waste it all myself, and leave you none.
10. In law, to damage, impair or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, etc. To go to decay. See the Noun.
11. To exhaust; to be consumed by time or mortality.
Till your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. Numbers 14:33.
12. To scatter and lose for want of use or of occupiers.
Full many a flowr is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.
WASTE, v.i.
1. To dwindle; to be diminished; to lose bulk or substance gradually; as, the body wastes in sickness.
The barrel of meal shall not waste. 1 Kings 17:14.
2. To be diminished or lost by slow dissipation, consumption or evaporation; as, water wastes by evaporation; fuel wastes in combustion.
3. To be consumed by time or mortality.
But man dieth, and wasteth away. Job 14:10.
WASTE, a.
1. Destroyed; ruined.
The Sophi leaves all waste in his retreat.
2. Desolate; uncultivated; as a waste country; a waste howling wilderness. Deuteronomy 32:10.
3. Destitute; stripped; as lands laid waste.
4. Superfluous; lost for want of occupiers.
--And strangled with her waste fertility.
5. Worthless; that which is rejected, or used only for mean purposes; as waste wood.
6. That of which no account is taken, or of which no value is found; as waste paper.
7. Uncultivated; untilled; unproductive.
There is yet much waste land in England.
Laid waste, desolated; ruined.
WASTE, n.
1. The act of squandering; the dissipation of property through wantonness, ambition, extravagance, luxury or negligence.
For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood.
2. Consumption; loss; useless expense; any loss or destruction which is neither necessary nor promotive of a good end; a loss for which there is no equivalent; as a waste of goods or money; a waste of time; a waste of labor; a waste of words.
Little wastes in great establishments, constantly occurring, may defeat the energies of a mighty capital.
3. A desolate or uncultivated country. The plains of Arabia are mostly a wide waste.
4. Land untilled, though capable of tillage; as the wastes in England.
5. Ground, space or place unoccupied; as the etherial waste.
In the dead waste and middle of the night.
6. Region ruined and deserted.
All the leafy nation sinks at last, and Vulcan rides in triumph oer the waste.
7. Mischief; destruction.
He will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.
8. In law, spoil, destruction or injury done to houses, woods, fences, lands, etc., by a tenant for life or for years, to the prejudice of the heir, or of him in reversion or remainder. Waste is voluntary, as by pulling down buildings; or permissive, as by suffering them to fall for want of necessary repairs. Whatever does a lasting damage to the freehold, is a waste.
WASTED, pp.
1. Expended without necessity or use; lost through negligence; squandered.
2. Diminished; dissipated; evaporated; exhausted.
3. Desolated; ruined; destroyed.
WASTEFUL, a.
1. Lavish; prodigal; expending property, or that which is valuable, without necessity or use; applied to persons.
2. Destructive to property; ruinous; as wasteful practices or negligence; wasteful expenses.
3. Desolate; unoccupied; untilled; uncultivated.
In wilderness and wasteful deserts strayd.
WASTEFULLY, adv. In a lavish manner; with prodigality; in useless expenses or consumption.
Her lavish hand is wastefully profuse.
WASTEFULNESS, n. Lavishness; prodigality; the act or practice of expending what is valuable without necessity or use.
WASTE-GATE, n. A gate to let the water of a pond pass off when it is not wanted.
WASTEL, n. A particular sort of bread; fine bread or cake.
WASTENESS, n. A desolate state; solitude.
That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness. Zephaniah 1:15.
WASTER, n.
1. One who is prodigal; one who squanders property; one who consumes extravagantly or without use.
He also that is slothful in his work, is brother to him who is a great waster. Proverbs 18:9.
Sconces are great wasters of candles.
2. A kind of cudgel.
WASTETHRIFT, n. [waste and thrift.] A spendthrift.
WASTE-WIER, n. An overfall or wier for the superfluous water of a canal.
WASTING, ppr.
1. Lavishing prodigally; expending or consuming without use; diminishing by slow dissipation; desolating; laying waste.
Wasting and relentless war has made ravages, with but few and short intermissions, from the days of the tyrant Nimrod down to the Nimrod of our own age.
2. a. Diminishing by dissipation or by great destruction; as a wasting disease.
WASTREL, n. A state of waste or common. [Local.]
WASTREL, WASTOREL, n. Waste substances; any thing cast away as bad. [Local.]
WATCH, n. [It is from the same root as wake, which see.]
1. Forbearance of sleep.
2. Attendance without sleep.
All the long night their mournful watch they keep.
3. Attention; close observation. Keep watch of the suspicious man.
4. Guard; vigilance for keeping or protecting against danger.
He kept both watch and ward.
5. A watchman, or watchmen; men set for a guard, either one person or more, set to espy the approach of an enemy or other danger, and to give an alarm or notice of such danger; a sentinel; a guard. He kept a watch at the gate.
Ye have a watch; go your way, make it as sure as ye can. Matthew 27:65.
6. The place where a guard is kept.
He upbraids I ago, that he made him brave me upon the watch.
7. Post or office of a watchman.
As I did stand my watch upon the hill--
8. A period of the night, in which one person or one set of persons stand as sentinels; or the time from one relief of sentinels to another. This period among the Israelites, seems to have been originally four hours, but was afterwards three hours, and there were four watches during the night. Hence we read in Scripture of the morning watch, and of the second, third and fourth watch; the evening watch commencing at six o’clock, the second at nine, the third at twelve, and the fourth at three in the morning. Exodus 14:24; Matthew 14:25; Luke 12:38.
9. A small time piece or chronometer, to be carried in the pocket or about the person, in which the machinery is moved by a spring.
10. At sea, the space of time during which one set or division of the crew remain on deck to perform the necessary duties. This is different in different nations.
To be on the watch, to be looking steadily for some event.
WATCH, v.i.
1. To be awake; to be or continue without sleep.
I have two nights watchd with you.
2. To be attentive; to look with attention or steadiness. Watch and see when the man passes.
3. To look with expectation.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. Psalm 130:6.
4. To keep guard; to act as sentinel; to look for danger.
He gave signal to the minister that watchd.
5. To be attentive; to be vigilant in preparation for an event or trial, the time of whose arrival is uncertain.
Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. Matthew 24:42.
6. To be insidiously attentive; as, to watch for an opportunity to injure another.
7. To attend on the sick during the night; as, to watch with a man in a fever.
To watch over, to be cautiously observant of; to inspect, superintend and guard from error and danger. It is our duty constantly to watch over our own conduct and that of our children.
WATCH, v.t.
1. To guard; to have in keeping.
Flaming ministers watch and tend their charge.
2. To observe in ambush; to lie in wait for.
Saul also sent messengers to Davids house to watch him, and to slay him. 1 Samuel 19:11.
3. To tend; to guard.
Paris watched the flocks in the groves of Ida.
4. To observe in order to detect or prevent, or for some particular purpose; as, to watch a suspected person; to watch the progress of a bill in the legislature.
WATCHED, pp. Guarded; observed with steady vigilance.
WATCHER, n.
1. One who sits up or continues awake; particularly, one who attends upon the sick during the night.
2. A diligent observer; as an attentive watcher of the works of nature. [Not in use.]
WATCHET, a. Pale or light blue.
Who stares in Germany at watchet eyes? [Not in use.]
WATCHFUL, a. Vigilant; attentive; careful to observe; observant; cautious. It has of before the thing to be regulated, as to be watchful of ones behavior; and against, before the thing to be avoided, as to be watchful against the growth of vicious habits.
WATCHFULLY, adv. Vigilantly; heedfully; with careful observation of the approach of evil, or attention to duty.
WATCHFULNESS, n.
1. Vigilance; heedfulness; heed; suspicious attention; careful and diligent observation for the purpose of preventing or escaping danger, or of avoiding mistakes and misconduct.
2. Wakefulness; indisposition or inability to sleep.
Watchfulness-often precedes too great sleepiness.
WATCH-GLASS, n. [watch and glass.]
1. In ships, a half hour glass, used to measure the time of a watch on deck.
2. A concavo-convex glass for covering the face or dial of a watch.
WATCH-HOUSE, n. [watch and house.] A house in which a watch or guard is placed.
WATCHING, ppr. Being awake; guarding; attending the sick; carefully observing.
WATCHING, n. Wakefulness; inability to sleep.
WATCH-LIGHT, n. [watch and light.] A candle with a rush wick.
WATCHMAKER, n. [watch and maker.] One whose occupation is to make and repair watches.
WATCHMAN, n. [watch and man.] A sentinel; a guard.
WATCHTOWER, n. [watch and tower.] A tower on which a sentinel is placed to watch for enemies or the approach of danger.
WATCHWORD, n. [watch and word.] The word given to sentinels, and to such as have occasion to visit the guards, used as a signal by which a friend is known from an enemy, or a person who has a right to pass the watch, from one who has not.
WATER, n. Wauter. [G., Gr.]
1. A fluid, the most abundant and most necessary for living beings of any in nature, except air. Water when pure, is colorless, destitute of taste and smell, ponderous, transparent, and in a very small degree compressible. It is reposited in the earth in inexhaustible quantities, where it is preserved fresh and cool, and from which it issues in springs, which form streams and rivers. But the great reservoirs of water on the globe are the ocean, seas and lakes, which cover more than three fifths of its surface, and from which it is raised by evaporation, and uniting with the air in the state of vapor, is wafted over the earth, ready to be precipitated in the form of rain, snow or hail.
Water by the abstraction or loss of heat becomes solid, or in other words, is converted into ice or snow; and by heat it is converted into steam, an elastic vapor, one of the most powerful agents in nature. Modern chemical experiments prove that water is a compound substance, consisting of a combination of oxygen and hydrogen gases, or rather the bases or ponderable matter of those gases; or about two volumes or measures of hydrogen gas and one of oxygen gas. The proportion of the ingredients in weight, is nearly 85 parts of oxygen to 15 of hydrogen.
2. The ocean; a sea; a lake; a river; any great collection of water; as in the phrases, to go by water, to travel by water.
3. Urine; the animal liquor secreted by the kidneys and discharged from the bladder.
4. The color or luster of a diamond or pearl, sometimes perhaps of other precious stones; as a diamond of the first water, that is, perfectly pure and transparent. Hence the figurative phrase, a man or a genius of the first water, that is, of the first excellence.
5. Water is a name given to several liquid substances or humors in animal bodies; as the water of the pericardium, of dropsy, etc.
Mineral waters, are those waters which are so impregnated with foreign ingredients, such as gaseous, sulphurous and saline substances, as to give them medicinal, or at least sensible properties. Most natural waters contain more or less of these foreign substances, but the proportion is generally too minute to affect the senses.
To hold water, to be sound or tight. [Obsolete or vulgar.]
WATER-BEARER, n. [water and bearer.] In astronomy, a sign of the zodiac, called also Aquarius, from L. Aqua, water.
WATER-BELLOWS, n. [water and bellows.] A machine for blowing air into a furnace, by means of a column of water falling through a vertical tube.
WATER-BORNE, n. Borne by the water; floated; having water sufficient to float; as ships water-borne by the flowing tide.
WATER-CALAMINT, n. [water and calamint.] A species of mint or Mentha.
WATER-CARRIAGE, n. [water and carriage.]
1. Transportation or conveyance by water; or the means of transporting by water.
2. A vessel or boat. [Not in use.]
WATER-CART, n. [water and cart.] A cart earing a large cask of water which is conveyed into a cylinder full of holes, by means of which the water is sprinkled upon the ground.
WATER-CLOCK, n. [water and clock.] The clepsydra; an instrument or machine serving to measure time by the fall of a certain quantity of water.
WATER-COLOR, n. [water and color.] Water-colors, in painting or limning, are colors diluted and mixed with gum-water. Water-colors are so called in distinction from oil-colors.
WATER-COURSE, n. [water and course.]
1. A stream of water; a river or brook. Isaiah 44:4.
2. A channel or canal for the conveyance of water, particularly in draining lands.
WATER-CRESS, n. [water and cress.] A small creeping plant or weed growing in watery places.
A plant, a species of Sisymbrium.