Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
DOLL — DOSSIL
DOLL, n. [Gr., an idol; to see.] A puppet or baby for a child; a small image in the human form, for the amusement of little girls.
DOLLAR, n. [G.] A silver coin of Spain and of the United States, of the value of one hundred cents, or four shillings and sixpence sterling. The dollar seems to have been originally a German coin, and in different parts of Germany, the name is given to coins of different values.
DOLOMITE, n. A variety of magnesian carbonate of lime, so called from the French geologist Dolomieu. Its structure is granular.
DOLOR, n. [L.] Pain; grief; lamentation.
DOLORIFEROUS, a. [L., pain; to produce.] Producing pain.
DOLORIFIC, a. [L.]
1. That causes pain or grief.
2. Expressing pain or grief.
DOLOROUS, a. [L., grief.]
1. Sorrowful; doleful; dismal; impressing sorrow or grief; as a dolorous object; a dolorous region.
2. Painful; giving pain.
Their dispatch is quick, and less dolorous than the paw of the bear.
3. Expressing pain or grief; as dolorous sighs.
DOLOROUSLY, adv. Sorrowfully; in a manner to express pain.
DOLPHIN, n. [Gr.]
1. A genus of cetaceous fish, with teeth in both jaws, and a pipe in the head, comprehending the dolphin, the porpoise, the grampus and the beluga. But the fish to which seamen give this name, is the Coryphaena hippuris of Linne. It has a flat roundish snout and a tapering body, with a fin running along the back from the head to the tail, consisting of a coriaceous membrane with soft spines.
2. In ancient Greece, a machine suspended over the sea, to be dropped on any vessel passing under it.
DOLPHINET, n. A female dolphin.
DOLT, n. [G.] A heavy, stupid fellow; a blockhead; to behave foolishly.
DOLTISH, a. Dull in intellect; stupid; blockish; as a doltish clown.
DOLTISHNESS, n. Stupidity.
DOM, used as a termination, denotes jurisdiction, or property and jurisdiction; primarily, doom, judgment; as in kingdom, earldom. Hence it is used to denote state, condition or quality, as in wisdom, freedom.
DOMAIN, n. [L.]
1. Dominion; empire; territory governed, or under the government of a sovereign; as the vast domains of the Russian emperor; the domains of the British king.
2. Possession; estate; as a portion of the kings domains.
3. The land about the mansion house of a lord, and in his immediate occupancy. In this sense, the word coincides with demain, demesne.
DOMAL, a. [L.] Pertaining to house in astrology.
DOME, n. [Gr., a house, a plain roof. L.]
1. A building; a house; a fabric; used in poetry.
2. A cathedral.
3. In architecture, a spherical roof, raised over the middle of a building; a cupola.
4. In chemistry, the upper part of a furnace, resembling a hollow hemisphere or small dome. This form serves to reflect or reverberate a part of the flame; hence these furnaces are called reverberating furnaces.
DOMESDAY. [See Doomsday.]
DOMESMAN, n. [See Doom.] A judge; an umpire.
DOMESTIC, a. [L., a house.]
1. Belonging to the house, or home; pertaining to ones place of residence, and to the family; as domestic concerns; domestic life; domestic duties; domestic affairs; domestic contentions; domestic happiness; domestic worship.
2. Remaining much at home; living in retirement; as a domestic man or woman.
3. Living near the habitations of man; tame; not wild; as domestic animals.
4. Pertaining to a nation considered as a family, or to ones own country; intestine; not foreign; as domestic troubles; domestic dissensions.
5. Made in ones own house, nation or country; as domestic manufactures.
DOMESTIC, n. One who lives in the family of another, as a chaplain or secretary. Also, a servant or hired laborer, residing with a family.
DOMESTICALLY, adv. In relation to domestic affairs.
DOMESTICATE, v.t.
1. To make domestic; to retire from the public; to accustom to remain much at home; as, to domesticate ones self.
2. To make familiar, as if at home.
3. To accustom to live near the habitations of man; to tame; as, to domesticate wild animals.
DOMESTICATION, n.
1. The act of withdrawing from the public notice and living much at home.
2. The act of taming or reclaiming wild animals.
DOMICIL, n. [L., a mansion.] An abode or mansion; a place of permanent residence, either of an individual or family; a residence, animo manendi.
DOMICIL, DOMICILIATE, v.t. To establish a fixed residence, or a residence that constitutes habitancy.
DOMICILED, DOMICILIATED, pp. Having gained a permanent residence or inhabitancy.
DIMICILIARY, a. Pertaining to an abode, or the residence of a person or family. A domiciliary visit is a visit to a private dwelling, particularly for the purpose of searching it, under authority.
DOMICILIATION, n. Permanent residence; inhabitancy.
DOMICILING, DOMICILIATING, ppr. Gaining or taking a permanent residence.
DOMIFY, v.t. [L., a house; to make.]
1. In astrology, to divide the heavens into twelve houses, in order to erect a theme or horoscope, by means of six great circles, called circles of position.
2. To tame. [Not in use and improper.]
DOMINANT, a. [L., to rule; lord, master; a house; to overcome, to subdue.]
1. Ruling; prevailing; governing; predominant; as the dominant party, or faction.
2. In music, the dominant or sensible chord is that which is practiced on the dominant of the tone, and which introduces a perfect cadence. Every perfect major chord becomes a dominant chord, as soon as the seventh minor is added to it.
DOMINANT, n. In music, of the three notes essential to the tone, the dominant is that which is a fifth from the tonic.
DOMINATE, v.t. [L. See Dominant.] To rule; to govern; to prevail; to predominate over.
We every where meet the Slavonian nations either dominant or dominated.
DOMINATE, v.i. To predominate. [Little used.]
DOMINATED, pp. Ruled; governed.
DOMINATING, ppr. Ruling; prevailing; predominating.
DOMINATION, n. [L.]
1. The exercise of power in ruling; dominion; government.
2. Arbitrary authority; tyranny.
3. One highly exalted in power; or the fourth order of angelic beings.
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.
DOMINATIVE, a. Governing; also, imperious.
DOMINATOR, n.
1. A ruler or ruling power; the presiding or predominant power.
Jupiter and Mars are dominators for this northwest part of the world.
2. An absolute governor.
DOMINEER, v.i. [L. See Dominant.]
1. To rule over with insolence or arbitrary sway.
To domineer over subjects or servants is evidence of a low mind.
2. To bluster; to hector; to swell with conscious superiority, or haughtiness.
Go to the feast, revel and domineer.
DOMINEERING, ppr.
1. Ruling over with insolence; blustering; manifesting haughty superiority.
2. a. Overbearing.
DOMINICAL, a. [Low L., lord.]
1. That notes the Lords day or Sabbath. The Dominical letter is the letter which, in almanacks, denotes the sabbath, or dies domini, the Lords day. The first seven letters of the alphabet are used for this purpose.
2. Noting the prayer of our Lord.
DOMINICAL, n. [infra.] The Lords day.
DOMINICAN, a. or n. The Dominicans, or Dominican Friars, are an order of religious or monks, called also Jacobins, or Predicants, preaching friars; an order founded about the year 1215.
DOMINION, n. [L. See Dominant.]
1. Sovereign or supreme authority; the power of governing and controlling.
The dominion of the Most High is an everlasting dominion. Daniel 4:34.
2. Power to direct, control, use and dispose of at pleasure; right of possession and use without being accountable; as the private dominion of individuals.
3. Territory under a government; region; country; district governed, or within the limits of the authority of a prince or state; as the British dominions.
4. Government; right of governing. Jamaica is under the dominion of Great Britain.
5. Predominance; ascendant.
6. An order of angels.
Whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. Colossians 1:16.
7. Persons governed.
Judah was his sanctuary; Israel his dominion. Psalm 114:2.
DOMINO, n. A kind of hood; a long dress; a masquerade dress.
DOMITE, n. A mineral named from Dome in Auvergne, in France, of a white or grayish white color, having the aspect and gritty feel of a sandy chalk.
DON. A title in Spain, formerly given to noblemen and gentlemen only, but now common to all classes. It is commonly supposed to be contracted from dominus, dom, and the Portuguese dono, the master or owner of any thing, gives some countenance to the opinion. It coincides nearly with Heb.: judge, ruler or lord. It was formerly used in England, and writter by Chaucer Dan. [See Spelman.]
Dona, or duena, the feminine of don, is the title of a lady, in Spain and Portugal.
DON, v.t. [To do on; opposed to doff.] To put on; to invest with.
DONACITE, n. A petrified shell of the genus Donax.
DONARY, n. [L., to give.] A thing given to a sacred use. [Little used.]
DONATION, n. [L., to give.]
1. The act of giving or bestowing; a grant.
That right we hold by his donation.
2. In law, the act or contract by which a thing or the use of it is transferred to a person, or corporation, as a free gift. To be valid, a donation supposes capacity both in the donor to give and donee to take, and requires consent, acceptance and delivery.
3. That which is given or bestowed; that which is transferred to another gratuitously, or without a valuable consideration; a gift; a grant. Donation is usually applied to things of more value than present.
Mr. Boudinot made a donation of ten thousand dollars to the American Bible Society.
DONATISM, n. The doctrines of the Donatists.
DONATIST, n. One of the sect founded by Donatus. They held that theirs was the only pure church, and that baptism and ordination, unless by their church, were invalid.
DONATISTIC, a. Pertaining to Donatism.
DONATIVE, n. [L., to give.]
1. A gift; a largess; a gratuity; a present; a dole.
The Romans were entertained with shows and donatives.
2. In the canon law, a benefice given and collated to a person, by the founder or patron, without either presentation, institution or induction by the ordinary.
DONATIVE, a. Vested or vesting by donation; as a donative advowson.
DONE, pp. Dun. [See Do.]
1. Performed; executed; finished.
2. A word by which agreement to a proposal is expressed; as in laying a wager, an offer being made, the person accepting or agreeing says, done; that is, it is agreed, I agree, I accept.
DONEE, n. [L., to give.]
1. The person to whom a gift or donation is made.
2. The person to whom lands or tenements are given or granted; as a donee in fee-simple or fee-tail.
DONJON or DONGEON. [See Dungeon.]
DONNAT, n. [do and naught.] An idle fellow. [Not in use.]
DONOR, n. [L., to give.]
1. One who gives or bestows; one who confers any thing gratuitously; a benefactor.
2. One who grants an estate; as, a conditional fee may revert to the donor, if the donee has no heirs of his body.
DONSHIP, n. [See Don.] The quality or rank of a gentleman or knight.
DONZEL, n. A young attendant; a page.
DOODLE, n. A trifler; a simple fellow.
DOOLE, [See Dole.]
DOOM, v.t. [L., to esteem, and perhaps with the root of condemn. See Deem.]
1. To judge. [Unusual.]
Thou didst not doom so strictly.
2. To condemn to any punishment; to consign by a decree or sentence; as, the criminal is doomed to chains.
3. To pronounce sentence or judgment on.
Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.
4. To command authoritatively.
Have I a tongue to doom my brothers death.
5. To destine; to fix irrevocably the fate or direction of; as, we are doomed to suffer for our sins and errors.
6. To condemn, or to punish by a penalty.
DOOM, n.
1. Judgment; judicial sentence.
To Satan, first in sin, his doom applied.
Hence, the final doom is the last judgment.
2. Condemnation; sentence; decree; determination affecting the fate or future state of another; usually a determination to inflict evil, sometimes otherwise.
Revoke that doom of mercy.
3. That state to which one is doomed, or destined. To suffer misery is the doom of sinners. To toil for subsistence is the doom of most men.
4. Ruin; destruction.
From the same foes, at last, both felt their doom.
5. Discrimination. [Not used.]
DOOMAGE, n. A penalty or fine for neglect.
DOOMED, pp. Adjudged; sentenced; condemned; destined; fated.
DOOMFUL, a. Full of destruction.
DOOMING, ppr. Judging; sentencing; condemning; destining.
DOOMSDAY, n. [doom and day.]
1. The day of the final judgment; the great day when all men are to be judged and consigned to endless happiness or misery.
2. The day of sentence or condemnation.
DOOMSDAY-BOOK, DOMESDAY-BOOK, n. A book compiled by order of William the Conqueror, containing a survey of all the lands in England. It consists of two volumes; a large folio, and a quarto. The folio contains 382 double pages of vellum, written in a small but plain character. The quarto contains 450 double pages of vellum, written in a large fair character.
DOOR, n. [G., Gr.]
1. An opening or passage into a house, or other building, or into any room, apartment or closet, by which persons enter. Such a passage is seldom or never called a gate.
2. The frame of boards, or any piece of board or plank that shuts the opening of a house or closes the entrance into an apartment or any inclosure, and usually turning on hinges.
3. In familiar language, a house; often in the plural, doors. My house is the first door from the corner. We have also the phrases, within doors, in the house; without doors, out of the house, abroad.
4. Entrance; as the door of life.
5. Avenue; passage; means of approach or access. An unforgiving temper shuts the door against reconciliation, or the door of reconciliation.
I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. John 10:9.
A door was opened to me of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 2:12.
To lie at the door, in a figurative sense, is to be imputable or chargeable to one. If the thing is wrong, the fault lies at my door.
Next door to, near to; bordering on.
A riot unpunished is but next door to a tumult.
Out of door or doors, quite gone; no more to be found. [Not now used.]
In doors, within the house; at home.
DOOR-CASE, n. The frame which incloses a door.
DOORING, n. A door-case. [Not used.]
DOOR-KEEPER, n. A porter; one who guards the entrance of a house or apartment.
DOOR-NAIL, n. The nail on which the knocker formerly struck.
DOOR-POST, n. The post of a door.
DOOR-STEAD, n. Entrance or place of a door.
DOQUET, n. Doket. A warrant; a paper granting license. [See Docket.]
DOR, DORR, n. The name of the black-beetle, or the hedgechafer, a species of Scarabaeus. We usually say, the dor-beetle.
DORADO, n.
1. A southern constellation, containing six stars, called also xiphias; not visible in our latitude.
2. A large fish resembling the dolphin.
DOREE, n. A fish of the genus Zeus. It is called also faber, and gallus marinus. The body is oval and greatly compressed on the sides; the head is large and the snout long.
DORIAN, a. Pertaining to Doris in Greece. [See Doric.]
DORIC, a. [from Doris in Greece.] in general, pertaining to Doris, or the Dorians, in Greece, who dwelt near Parnassus.
In architecture, noting the second order of columns, between the Tuscan and Ionic. The Doric order is distinguished for simplicity and strength. It is used in the gates of cities and citadels, on the outside of churches, etc.
The Doric dialect of the Greek language was the dialect of the Dorians, and little different from that of Lacedemon.
The Doric mode, in music, was the first of the authentic modes of the ancients. Its character is to be severe, tempered with gravity and joy.
DORICISM, DORISM, n. A phrase of the Doric dialect.
DORMANCY, n. [infra.] Quiescence.
DORMANT, a. [L., to sleep.]
1. Sleeping; hence, at rest; not in action; as dormant passions.
2. Being in a sleeping posture; as the lion dormant, in heraldry.
3. Neglected; not used; as a dormant title; dormant privileges.
4. Concealed; not divulged; private. [Unusual.]
5. Leaning; inclining; not perpendicular; as a dormant window, supposed to be so called form a beam of that name. This is now written dormer or dormar.
DORMANT, n. A beam; a sleeper.
DORMAR, n. A beam; a sleeper.
DORMAR, DORMAR-WINDOW, n. A window in the roof of a house, or above the entablature, being raised upon the rafters.
DORMITIVE, n. [L., to sleep.] A medicine to promote sleep; an opiate.
DORMITORY, n. [L., to sleep.]
1. A place, building or room to sleep in.
2. A gallery in convents divided into several cells, where the religious sleep.
3. A burial place.
DORMOUSE, n. plu. Dormice. [L., to sleep and mouse.] An animal of the mouse kind, which makes a bed of moss or dry leaves, in a hollow tree or under shrubs, lays in a store of nuts or other food, and on the approach of cold weather, rolls itself in a ball and sleeps the greatest part of the winter.
DORN, n. [G., thorn.] A fish.
DORON, n. [Gr., a gift.]
1. A gift; a present. [Not in use.]
2. A measure of three inches.
DORP, n. [G.] A small village.
DORR. [See Dor.]
DORR, v.t. To deafen with noise. [Not in use.]
DORRER, n. A drone. [Not in use.]
DORSAL, a. [L., the back.] Pertaining to the back; as the dorsal fin of a fish; dorsal awn, in botany.
DORSE, n. A canopy.
DORSEL, n. [See Dosser.]
DORSIFEROUS, DORSIPAROUS, a. [L., the back; to bear.] In botany, bearing or producing seeds on the back of their leaves; an epithet given to ferns or plants of the capillary kind without stalks.
DORSUM, n. [L.] The ridge of a hill.
DORTURE, n. [contraction of dormiture.] A dormitory. [Not in use.]
DOSE, n. [Gr., that which is give; to give.]
1. The quantity of medicine give or prescribed to be taken at one time.
2. Any thing given to be swallowed; any thing nauseous, that one is obliged to take.
3. A quantity; a portion.
4. As much as a man can swallow.
DOSE, v.t.
1. To proportion a medicine properly to the patient or disease; to form into suitable doses.
2. To give in doses; to give medicine or physic.
3. To give any thing nauseous.