Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
GALLICISM — GARDENER
GALLICISM, n. A mode of speech peculiar to the French nation; an idiomatic manner of using words in the French language.
GALLIGASKINS, n. Large open hose; used only in ludicrous language.
GALLIMAUFRY, n. A hash; a medley; a hodge-podge. [Little used.]
1. Any inconsistent or ridiculous medley.
2. A woman. [Not in used.]
GALLINACEOUS, a. [L. gallinaceus, from gallina, a hen, gallus, a cock, whose name is from crowing; Eng. to call.]
1. Designating that order of fowls called gallinoe, including the domestic fowls or those of the pheasant kind.
Gallinaceus Lapis, a glossy substance produced by volcanic fires; the lapis obsidianus of the ancients. A kind of it brought from Peru is of a beautiful black, or crow-color, like the gallinaco.
GALLING, ppr. [See Gall, the verb.]
1. Fretting the skin; excoriating.
2. Adapted to fret or chagrin; vexing.
GALLINULE, n. [L. gallinula, dim. of gallina, a hen.]
A tribe of fowls of the grallic order, included under the genus Fulica, with the coot.
GALLIOT, GALLEOT, [See Galiot.]
GALLIPOT, n. A small pot or vessel painted and glazed, used by druggists and apothecaries for containing medicines.
GALLITZINITE, n. Rutile, an ore of titanium.
GALLIVAT, n. A small vessel used on the Malabar coast.
GALLLESS, a. [from gall.] Free from gall or bitterness.
GALLON, n. [Law L. galona.] A measure of capacity for dry or liquid things, but usually for liquids, containing four quarts. But the gallon is not in all cases of uniform contents or dimensions. The gallon of wine contains 231 cubic inches, or eight pounds avordupois of pure water. The gallon of beer and ale contains 281 cubic inches, or ten pounds three ounces and a quarter avordupois of water; and the gallon of corn, meal, etc., 272 1/4 cubic inches, or nine pounds thirteen ounces of pure water.
GALLOON, n. A kind of close lace made of gold or silver, or of silk only.
GALLOP, v.i.
1. To move or run with leaps, as a horse to run or move with speed.
But gallop lively down the western hill.
2. To ride with a galloping pace.
We galloped towards the enemy.
3. To move very fast; to run over.
Such superficial ideas he may collect in galloping over it.
GALLOP, n. The movement or pace of a quadruped, particularly of a horse, by springs, reaches or leaps. The animal lifts his fore feet nearly at the same time, and as these descend and are just ready to touch the ground, the hind feet are lifted at once. The gallop is the swiftest pace of a horse, but it is also a moderate pace, at the pleasure of a rider.
GALLOPER, n. A horse that gallops; also, a man that gallops or makes haste.
1. In artillery, a carriage which bears a gun of a pound and a half ball. It has shafts so as to be drawn without a limbon, and it may serve for light three and six pounders.
GALLOPIN, n. A servant for the kitchen.
GALLOW, v.t. To fright or terrify.
GALLOWAY, n. A horse or species of horses of a small size, bred in Galloway in Scotland.
GALLOWGLASS, n. An ancient Irish foot soldier.
GALLOWS, n. singular. [Gallows is in the singular number and should be preceded by a, a gallows. The plural is gallowses.]
1. An instrument of punishment whereon criminals are executed by hanging. It consists of two posts and a cross beam on the top, to which the criminal is suspended by a rope fastened round his neck.
2. A wretch that deserves the gallows. [Not used.]
GALLOWSFREE, a. Free from danger of the gallows.
GALLOWTREE, n. The tree of execution.
GALLY, a. Like gall; bitter as gall.
GALLY, n. A printer’s frame or oblong square board with a ledge on three sides, into which types are emptied from the composing stick. It has a groove to admit a false bottom, called a gally-slice.
GALLY-WORM, n. An insect of the centiped kind, of several species.
GALOCHE, n. A patten, clog or wooden shoe, or a shoe to be worn over another shoe to keep the foot dry. It is written also galoshe.
GALSOME, a. gaul’som. [from gall.] Angry; malignant.
GALVANIC, a. Pertaining to galvanism; containing or exhibiting it.
GALVANISM, n. [from Galvani of Bologna, the discover.]
Electrical phenomena in which the electricity is developed without the aid of friction, and in which a chimical action takes place between certain bodies.
Galvanism is heat, light, electricity and magnetism, united in combination or in simultaneous action; sometimes one and sometimes another of them predominating, and thus producing more or less all the effects of each: usual means of excitement, contact of dissimilar bodies, especially of metals and fluids.
GALVANIST, n. One who believes in galvanism; one versed in galvanism.
GALVANIZE, v.t. To affect with galvanism.
GALVANOLOGIST, n. One who describes the phenomena of galvanism.
GALVANOLOGY, n. [galvanism, and Gr. discourse.]
A treatise on galvanism, or a description of its phenomena.
GALVANOMETER, n. [galvanism, and Gr. measure.]
An instrument or apparatus for measuring minute quantities of electricity, or the operations of galvanism.
GAMASHES, n. Short spatterdashes worn by plowmen.
GAMBADOES, n. Spatterdashes.
GAMBET, n. A bird of the size of the greenshank, found in the Arctic sea, and in Scandinavia and Iceland.
GAMBLE, v.i. [from game.] To play or game for money or other stake.
GAMBLE, v.t. To gamble away, is to squander by gaming.
Bankrupts or sots who have gambled or slept away their estates.
GAMBLER, n. One who games or plays for money or other stake. Gamblers often or usually become cheats and knaves.
GAMBLING, ppr. Gaming for money.
GAMBOGE, n. A concrete vegetable juice or gum-resin. It is brought in orbicular masses or cylindrical rolls, from Cambaja, Cambodja, or Cambogia, in the E. Indies, whence its name. It is of a dense, compact texture, and of a beautiful reddish yellow. It is used chiefly as a pigment. Taken internally, it is a strong and harsh cathartic and emetic.
GAMBOL, v.i.
1. To dance and skip about in sport; to frisk; to leap; to play in frolic, like boys and lambs.
2. To leap; to start.
GAMBOL, n. A skipping or leaping about in frolic; a skip; a hop; a leap; a sportive prank.
GAMBOLING, ppr. Leaping; frisking; playing pranks.
GAMBREL, n. The hind leg of a horse. Hence, in America, a crooked stick used by butchers. A hipped roof is called a gambrel-roof.
GAMBREL, v.t. To tie by the leg.
GAME, n.
1. Sport of any kind.
2. Jest; opposed to earnest; as, betwixt earnest and game. [Not used.]
3. An exercise or play for amusement or winning a stake; as a game of cricket; a game of chess; a game of whist. Some games depend on skill; others on hazard.
4. A single match at play.
5. Advantage in play; as, to play the game into another’s hand.
6. Scheme pursued; measures planned.
This seems to be the present game of that crown.
7. Field sports; the chase, falconry, etc.
8. Animals pursued or taken in the chase, or in the sports of the field; animals appropriated in England to legal sportsmen; as deer, hares, etc.
9. In antiquity, games were public diversions or contests exhibited as spectacles for the gratification of the people. These games consisted of running, leaping, wrestling, riding, etc. Such were the Olympic games, the Pythian, the Isthmian, the Nemean, etc., among the Greeks; and among the Romans, the Apollinarian, the Circensian, the Capitoline, etc.
10. Mockery; sport; derision; as, to make game of a person.
GAME, v.i. To play at any sport or diversion.
1. To play for a stake or prize; to use cards, dice, billiards or other instruments, according to certain rules, with a view to win money or other thing waged upon the issue of the contest.
2. To practice gaming.
GAMECOCK, n. A cock bred or used to fight; a cock kept for barbarous sport.
GAME-EGG, n. An egg from which a fighting cock is bred.
GAMEKEEPER, n. One who has the care of game; one who is authorized to preserve beasts of the chase, or animals kept for sport.
GAMESOME, a. Gay; sportive; playful; frolicsome.
This gamesome humor of children.
GAMESOMENESS, n. Sportiveness; merriment.
GAMESOMELY, adv. Merrily; playfully.
GAMESTER, n.
1. A person addicted to gaming; one who is accustomed to play for money or other stake, at cards, dice, billiards and the like; a gambler; one skilled in games.
It is as easy to be a scholar as a gamester.
2. One engaged at play.
3. A merry, frolicsome person. [Not used.]
4. A prostitute. [Not in use.]
GAMING, ppr. Playing; sporting; playing for money.
GAMING, n. The act or art of playing any game in a context for a victory, or for a prize or stake.
1. The practice of using cards, dice, billiards and the like, according to certain rules, for winning money, etc.
GAMING-HOUSE, n. A house where gaming is practiced.
GAMING-TABLE, n. A table appropriated to gaming.
GAMMER, n. The compellation of an old woman, answering to gaffer, applied to an old man.
GAMMON, n.
1. The buttock or thigh of a hog, pickled and smoked or dried; a smoked ham.
2. A game, called usually back-gammon, which see.
GAMMON, v.t. To make bacon; to pickle and dry in smoke.
1. To fasten a bowsprit to the stem of a ship by several turns of a rope.
GAMMON, v.t. In the game of back-gammon, the party that, by fortunate throws of the dice or by superior skill in moving, withdraws all his men from the board, before his antagonist has been able to get his men home and withdraw any of them from his table, gammons his antagonist.
GAMMUT, n. [from the Greek letter so named.]
1. A scale on which notes in music are written or printed, consisting of lines and spaces, which are named after the seven first letters of the alphabet.
2. The first or gravest note in Guido’s scale of music, the modern scale.
GAN, a contraction of began, or rather the original simple word, Sax. gynnan, to begin.
GANCH, v.t. To drop from a high place on hooks, as the Turks do malefactors, by way of punishment.
GANDER, n. [L. anser.] The male of fowls of the goose kind.
GANG, v.i. To go; to walk. [Local, or used only in ludicrous language.]
GANG, n. [G., a metallic vein, a streak in a mine.]
1. Properly, a going; hence, a number of going in company; hence, a company, or a number of persons associated for a particular purpose; as a gang of thieves.
2. In seamen’s language, a select number of a ship’s crew appointed on a particular service, under a suitable officer.
3. In mining, literally a course or vein, but appropriately the earthy, stony, saline or combustible substance which contains the ore of metals, or is only mingled with it, without being chemically combined. This is called the gang or matrix of the ore. It differs from a mineralizer, in not being combined with the metal.
[This word, in the latter sense, is most unwarrantably and erroneously written gangue.]
GANGBOARD, n. A board or plank with cleats for steps, used for walking into or out of a boat.
GANGDAYS, n. Days or perambulation.
GANGHON, n. A flower.
GANGLION, n. In anatomy, a small circumscribed tumor, found in certain parts of the nervous system.
1. In surgery, a movable tumor formed on the tendons, generally about the wrist.
GANGRENATE, v.t. To produce a gangrene.
GANGRENE, n. [L. gangroena.] A mortification of living flesh, or of some part of a living animal body. It is particularly applied to the first state of mortification, before the life of the part is completely extinct. When the part is completely dead, it is called sphacelus.
GANGRENE, v.t. To mortify, or to begin mortification in.
GANGRENE, v.i. To become mortified.
GANGRENESCENT, a. Tending to mortification; beginning to corrupt or putrefy, as living flesh.
GANGRENOUS, a. Mortified; indicating mortification of living flesh.
GANGUE, n. gang. [See Gang.] In mining, the earthy, stony, saline, or combustible substance, which contains the ore of metals, or is only mingled with it without being chimically combined, is called the gangue or matrix of the ore. It differs from a mineralizer, in not being combined with the metal.
GANGWAY, n. A passage, way or avenue into or out of any inclosed place, especially a passage into or out of a ship, or from one part of a ship to another; also, a narrow platform of planks laid horizontally along the upper part of a ship’s side, from the quarter deck to the forecastle.
To bring to the gangway, in the discipline of ships, is to punish a seaman by seizing him up and flogging him.
GANGWEEK, n. Rogation week, when processions are made to lustrate or survey the bounds of parishes.
GANIL, n. A kind of brittle limestone.
GANNET, n. The Solan Goose, a fowl of the genus Pelicanus, about seven pounds in weight, with a straight bill, six inches long, and palmated feet. These fowls frequent the isles of Scotland in summer, and feed chiefly on herrings.
GANTLET, GAUNTLET, n. A large iron glove with fingers covered with small plates, formerly worn by cavaliers, armed at all points.
To throw the gantlet, is to challenge; and
To take up the gantlet, is to accept the challenge.
GANTLOPE, n. A military punishment inflicted on criminals for some heinous offense. It is executed in this manner; soldiers are arranged in two rows, face to face, each armed with a switch or instrument of punishment; between these rows, the offender, stripped to his waist, is compelled to pass a certain number of times, and each man gives him a stroke. A similar punishment is used on board of ships. Hence this word is chiefly used in the phrase, to run the gantlet or gantlope.
GANZA, n. A kind of wold goose, by a flock of which a virtuoso was fabled to be carried to the lunar world.
GAOL, n. A prison; a place for the confinement of debtors and criminals.
GAOL, v.t. To imprison; to confine in prison.
GAOLDELIVERY, n. A judicial process for clearing jails of criminals, by trial and condemnation or acquittal.
GAOLER, n. The keeper of a gaol or prisoner; a jailor.
GAP, n. [See Gape and Gab.]
1. An opening in any thing made by breaking or parting; as a gap in a fence or wall.
2. A breach.
Manifold miseries ensued by the opening of that gap to all that side of christendom.
3. Any avenue or passage; way of entrance or departure.
4. A breach; a defect; a flaw; as a gap in honor or reputation.
5. An interstice; a vacuity.
A third can fill the gap with laughing.
6. A hiatus; a chasm; as a gap between words.
To stop a gap, to secure a weak point; to repair a defect.
To stand in the gap, to expose one’s self for the protection of something; to make defense against any assailing danger. Ezekiel 22:30.
GAPE, v.i.
1. To open the mouth wide, from sleepiness, drowsiness or dullness; to yawn.
2. To open the mouth for food, as young birds.
3. To gape for or after, to desire earnestly; to crave; to look and long for; as, men often gape after court favor.
The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes.
To gape at, in a like sense, is hardly correct.
4. To open in fissures or crevices; as a gaping rock.
May that ground gape, and swallow me alive.
5. To have a hiatus; as one vowel gaping on another.
6. To open the mouth in wonder or surprise; as the gaping fool; the gaping crowd.
7. To utter sound with open throat.
8. To open the mouth with hope or expectation.
9. To open the mouth with a desire to injure or devour.
They have gaped upon me with their mouth. Job 16:10.
G`APE, n. A gaping.
GAPER, n. One who gapes; a yawner.
1. One who opens his mouth for wonder and stares foolishly.
2. One who longs or craves.
3. A fish with six or seven bands and tail undivided.
GAPING, ppr. Opening the mouth wide from sleepiness, dullness, wonder or admiration; yawning; opening in fissures; craving.
GAPTOOTHED, a. Having interstices between the teeth.
GAR, in Saxon, a dart, a weapon; as in Edgar, or Eadgar, a happy weapon; Ethelgar, noble weapon.
GARAGAY, n. A rapacious fowl of Mexico, of the size of the kite.
GARB, n.
1. Dress; clothes; habit; as the garb of a clergyman or judge.
2. Fashion or mode of dress.
3. Exterior appearance; looks.
4. In heraldry, a sheaf of corn.
GARBAGE, n. [I know not the component parts of this word.] The bowels of an animal; refuse parts of flesh; offal.
GARBAGED, a. Stripped of the bowels.
GARBEL, n. The plank next the keel of a ship. [See Garboard-streak.]
GARBLE, v.t. [L. cribro, cribello.]
1. Properly, to sift or bolt; to separate the fine or valuabale parts of a substance from the coarse and useless parts, or from dross or dirt; as, to garble spices.
2. To separate; to pick; to cull out.
GARBLED, pp. Sifted; bolted; separated; culled out.
GARBLER, n. One who garbles, sifts or separates. A garbler of spices, is an officer of great antiquity in London.
1. One who picks out, culls or selects.
GARBLES, n. plu. The dust, soil or filth, severed from good spices, drugs, etc.
GARBLING, ppr. Sifting; separating; sorting; culling.
GARBOARD, n. The garboard plank, in a ship, is the first plank fastened on the keel on the outside.
Garboard-streak, in a ship, is the first range or streak of planks laid on a ship’s bottom, next the keel.
GARBOIL, n. Tumult; uproar. [Not used.]
GARD. [See Guard and Ward.]
GARDEN, n. [Eng. yard, an inclosed place; L. hortus.]
1. A piece of ground appropriated to the cultivation of herbs, or plants, fruits and flowers; usually near a mansion-house. Land appropriated to the raising of culinary herbs and roots for domestic use, is called a kitchen-garden; that appropriated to flowers and shrubs is called a flower garden; and that to fruits, is called a fruit garden. But these uses are sometimes blended.
2. A rich, well cultivated spot or tract of country; a delightful spot. The intervals on the river Connecticut are all a garden. Lombardy is the garden of Italy.
Garden, in composition, is used adjectively, as garden-mold, a rich fine mold or soil; garden-tillage, the tillage used in cultivating gardens.