Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

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HARDNESS — HARVESTER

HARDNESS, n. [See Hard.] Firmness; close union of the component parts; compactness; solidity; the quality of bodies which resists impression; opposed to softness and fluidity.

1. Difficulty to be understood.

2. Difficulty to be executed or accomplished; as the hardness of an enterprise.

3. Scarcity; penury; difficulty of obtaining money; as the hardness of the times.

4. Obduracy; impenitence; confirmed state of wickedness; as hardness of heart.

5. Coarseness of features; harshness of look; as hardness of favor.

6. Severity of cold; rigor; as the hardness of winter.

7. Cruelty of temper; savageness; harshness.

The blame

May hang upon your hardness.

8. Stiffness; harshness; roughness; as the hardnesses of sculpture.

9. Closeness; niggardliness; stinginess.

10. Hardship; severe labor, trials or sufferings.

Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 2 Timothy 2:3.

HARDNIBBED, a. Having a hard nib or point.

HARDOCK, n. Probably hoardock, dock with whitish leaves.

HARDS, n. The refuse or coarse part of flax; tow.

HARDSHIP, n. Toil; fatigue; severe labor or want; whatever oppresses the body.

1. Injury; oppression; injustice.

HARDVISAGED, a. Having coarse features; of a harsh countenance.

HARDWARE, n. Wares made of iron or other metal, as pots, kettles, saws, knives, etc.

HARDWAREMAN, n. A maker or seller of hardwares.

HARDY, a.

1. Bold; brave; stout; daring; resolute; intrepid.

Who is hardy enough to encounter contempt?

2. Strong; firm; compact.

An unwholesome blast may shake in pieces his hardy fabric.

3. Confident; full of assurance; impudent; stubborn to excess.

4. Inured to fatigue; rendered firm by exercise, as a veteran soldier.

HAR, HARE, HERE, in composition, signify an army, Sax. here, G. heer, D. heir. So Harold is a general of an army; Herwin, a victorious army.

HARE, n. A quadruped of the genus Lepus, with long ears, a short tail, soft hair, and a divided upper lip. It is a timid animal, often hunted for sport or for its flesh, which is excellent food. It moves by leaps, and is remarkable for its fecundity.

1. A constellation.

HARE, v.t. To fright, or to excite, tease and harass, or worry. [Not used. See Harry.]

HAREBELL, n. A plant of the genus Hyacinthus, with campaniform or bell-shaped flowers.

HAREBRAINED, a. [hare and brain.] Wild; giddy; volatile; heedless.

HAREFOOT, n. A bird; a plant.

HAREHEARTED, a. Timorous; easily frightened.

HAREHOUND, n. A hound for hunting hares.

HAREHUNTER, n. One who hunts or is used to hunting hares.

HAREHUNTING, n. The hunting of hares.

HARELIP, n. A divided upper lip, like that of a hare.

HARELIPPED, a. Having a harelip.

HAREMINT, n. A plant.

HAREPIPE, n. A snare for catching hares.

HARE’S-EAR, n. A plant of the genus Bupleurum. The Bastard Hare’s Ear is of the genus Phyllis.

HARE’S-LETTUCE, n. A plant of the genus Sonchus.

HAREWORT, n. A plant.

HAREM, n. A seraglio; a place where Eastern princes confine their women, who are prohibited from the society of others.

HARENGIFORM, a. [See Herring.] Shaped like a herring.

HARICOT, n. A kind of ragout of meat and roots.

1. In French, beans.

HARIER, HARRIER, n. [from hare.] A dog for hunting hares; a kind of hound with an acute sense of smelling.

HARIOLATION, n. [L. harioltio.] Sooth-saying. [Not in use. See Ariolation.]

HARK, v.t. [contracted from hearken, which see.]

To listen; to lend the ear.

This word is rarely or never used, except in the imperative mode, hark, that is, listen, hear.

HARL, HERL, n. The skin of flax; the filaments of flax or hemp.

1. A filamentous substance.

[In New England, I have heard this word pronounced herl.]

HARLEQUIN, n. A buffoon, dressed in party-colored clothes, who plays tricks, like a merry-andrew, to divert the populace. This character was first introduced into Italian comedy, but is now a standing character in English pantomime entertainments.

H`ARLEQUIN, v.i. To play the droll; to make sport by playing ludicrous tricks.

HARLOCK, n. A plant.

HARLOT, n.

1. A woman who prostitutes her body for hire; a prostitute; a common woman.

2. In Scripture, one who forsakes the true God and worships idols. Isaiah 1:21.

3. A servant; a rogue; a cheat.

H`ARLOT, a. Wanton; lewd; low; base.
H`ARLOT, v.i. To practice lewdness.

HARLOTRY, n. The trade or practice of prostitution; habitual or customary lewdness.

HARM, n.

1. Injury; hurt; damage; detriment.

Do thyself no harm. Acts 16:28.

He shall make amends for the harm he hath done in the holy thing. Leviticus 5:16.

2. Moral wrong; evil; mischief; wickedness; a popular sense of the word.

H`ARM, v.t. To hurt; to injure; to damage; to impair soundness of body, either animal or vegetable.

HARMATTAN, n. A dry easterly wind in Africa, which destroys vegetation.

HARMED, pp. Injured; hurt; damaged.

HARMEL, n. The wild African rue.

HARMFUL, a. Hurtful; injurious; noxious; detrimental; mischievous.

The earth brought forth fruit and food for man, without any mixture of harmful quality.

HARMFULLY, adv. Hurtfully; injuriously; with damage.

HARMFULNESS, n. Hurtfulness; noxiousness.

HARMING, ppr. Hurting; injuring.

HARMLESS, a. Not hurtful or injurious; innoxious. Ceremonies are harmless in themselves.

1. Unhurt; undamaged; uninjured; as, to give bond to save another harmless.

2. Innocent; not guilty.

Who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. Hebrews 7:26.

HARMLESSLY, adv. Innocently; without fault or crime; as, to pass the time harmlessly in recreations.

1. Without hurt or damage.

Bullets fall harmlessly into wood or feathers.

HARMLESSNESS, n. The quality of being innoxious; freedom from a tendency to injure.

1. Innocence.

HARMONIC, HARMONICAL, a. [See Harmony.] Relating to harmony or music; as harmonical use.

1. Concordant; musical; consonant; as harmonic sounds.

Harmonic twang of leather, horn and brass.

The basis of an harmonic system.

The harmonic elements are the three smallest concords.

2. An epithet applied to the accessary sounds which accompany the predominant and apparently simple tone of any chord or string.

Harmonical mean, in arithmetic and algebra, a term used to express certain relations of numbers and quantities, which are supposed to bear an analogy to musical consonances.

Harmonical proportion, in arithmetic and algebra, is said to obtain between three quantities, or four quantities, in certain cases.

Harmonical series, a series of many numbers in continued harmonical proportion.

HARMONICA, n. A collection of musical glasses of a particular form, so arranged as to produce exquisite music.

HARMONICS, n. Harmonious sounds; consonances.

1. The doctrine or science of musical sounds.

2. Derivative sounds, generated with predominant sounds, and produced by subordinate vibrations of a chord or string, when its whole length vibrates. These shorter vibrations produce more acute sounds, and are called acute harmonics.

3. Grave harmonics are low sounds which accompany every perfect consonance of two sounds.

HARMONIOUS, a. Adapted to each other; having the parts proportioned to each other; symmetrical.

God hath made the intellectual world harmonious and beautiful without us.

1. Concordant; consonant; symphonious; musical. Harmonious sounds are such as accord, and are agreeable to the ear.

2. Agreeing; living in peace and friendship; as a harmonious family or society.

HARMONIOUSLY, adv. With just adaptation and proportion of parts to each other.

Distances, motions, and quantities of matter harmoniously adjusted in this great variety of our system.

1. With accordance of sound; musically; in concord.

2. In agreement; in peace and friendship.

HARMONIOUSNESS, n. Proportion and adaption of parts; musicalness.

1. Agreement; concord.

HARMONIST, n. A musician; a composer of music.

1. One who brings together corresponding passages, to show their agreement.

HARMONIZE, v.i. To be in concord; to agree in sounds.

1. To agree; to be in peace and friendship; as individuals or families.

2. To agree in sense or purport; as, the arguments harmonize; the facts stated by different witnesses harmonize.

H`ARMONIZE, v.t. To adjust in fit proportions; to cause to agree.

1. To make musical; to combine according to the laws of counterpoint.

HARMONIZED, pp. Made to be accordant.

HARMONIZER, n. One that brings together or reconciles.

1. In music, a practical harmonist.

HARMONIZING, ppr. Causing to agree.

HARMONOMETER, n. An instrument or monochord for measuring the harmonic relations of sounds.

HARMONY, n. [L. harmonia; Gr. a setting together, a closure or seam, agreement, concert, to fit or adapt, to square.]

1. The just adaptation of parts to each other, in any system or composition of things, intended to form a connected whole; as the harmony of the universe.

Equality and correspondence are the causes of harmony.

All discord, harmony not understood.

2. Just proportion of sound; consonance; musical concord; the accordance of two or more intervals or sounds, or that union of different sounds which pleases the ear; or a succession of such sounds, called chords.

Ten thousand harps that tuned Angelic harmonies.

3. Concord; agreement; accordance in facts; as the harmony of the gospels.

4. Concord or agreement in views, sentiments or manners, interests, etc., good correspondence; peace and friendship.

The citizens live in harmony.

5. Natural harmony, in music, consists of the harmonic triad or common chord. Artificial harmony, is a mixture of concords and discords. Figured harmony, is when one or more of the parts move, during the continuance of a chord, through certain notes which do not form any of the constituent parts of that chord.

6. Perfect harmony implies the use of untempered concords only. Tempered harmony is when the notes are varied by temperament. [See Temperament.]

HARMOST, n. [Gr. to regulate.] In ancient Greece, a Spartan governor, regulator or perfect.

HARMOTOME, n. [Gr. a joint, and to cut.] In mineralogy, cross-stone, or staurolite, called also pyramidical zeolite. [See Cross-stone.]

HARNESS, n.

1. Armor; the whole accouterments or equipments of a knight or horseman; originally perhaps defensive armor, but in a more modern and enlarged sense, the furniture of a military man, or offensive, as a casque, cuirass, helmet, girdle, sword, buckler, etc.

2. The furniture of a draught horse, whether for a wagon, coach, gig, chaise, etc., called in some of the American states, tackle or tackling, with which, in its primary sense, it is synonymous.

H`ARNESS, v.t. To dress in armor; to equip with armor for war, as a horseman.

Harnessed in rugged steel.

1. To put on the furniture of a horse for draught.

Harness the horses. Jeremiah 46:4.

2. To defend; to equip or furnish for defense. 1 Maccabees 4:7.

HARNESSED, pp. Equipped with armor; furnished with the dress for draught; defended.

HARNESSER, n. One who puts on the harness of a horse.

HARNESSING, ppr. Putting on armor or furniture for draught.

HARP, n.

1. An instrument of music of the stringed kind, of a triangular figure, held upright and commonly touched with the fingers.

2. A constellation.

H`ARP, v.i. To play on the harp.

I heard the voice of harpers, harping with their harps. Revelation 14:2.

1. To dwell on, in speaking or writing; to continue sounding.

He seems

Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am--

Not what he knew I was.

2. To touch as a passion; to affect.

HARPER, n. A player on the harp.

HARPING, ppr. Playing on a harp; dwelling on continually.

H`ARPING, n. A continual dwelling on.

Making infinite merriment by harpings upon old themes.

H`ARPING, n. plu. harpings. In ships, harpings are the fore-parts of the wales, which encompass the bow of the ship, and are fastened to the stem. Their use is to strengthen the ship, in the place where she sustains the greatest shock in plunging into the sea.

Cat-harpings, are ropes which serve to brace in the shrouds of the lower masts, behind their respective yards.

HARPING-IRON, n. A harpoon, which see.

HARPIST, n. A harper.

HARPOON, n. [Gr. to seize with the claws; probably L. rapio, by transposition of letters.]

A harping-iron; a spear or javelin, used to strike whales for killing them. It consists of a long shank, with a broad flat triangular head, sharpened at both edges for penetrating the whale with facility. It is generally thrown by hand.

HARPOON, v.t. To strike, catch or kill with a harpoon.

The beluga is usually caught in nets, but is sometimes harpooned.

HARPOONED, pp. Struck, caught or killed with a harpoon.

HARPOONER, n. One who uses a harpoon; the man in a whale-boat who throws the harpoon.

HARPOONING, ppr. Striking with a harpoon.

HARPSICHORD, n. [harp and chord.] An instrument of music with strings of wire, played by the fingers, by means of keys. The striking of these keys moves certain little jacks, which move a double row of chords or strings, stretched over four bridges on the table of the instrument.

HARPY, n. [L. harpyia; Gr. to seize or claw.]

1. In antiquity, the harpies were fabulous winged monsters, having the face of a woman and the body of a vulture, with their feet and fingers armed with sharp claws. They were three in number, Aello, Ocypete, and Celeno. They were sent by Juno to plunder the table of Phineus. They are represented as rapacious and filthy animals.

2. Any rapacious or ravenous animal; an extortioner; a plunderer.

HARQUEBUSE. [See Arquebuse.]

HARRATEEN, n. A kind of stuff or cloth.

HARRIDAN, n. A decayed strumpet.

HARRIER, n. A hunting hound with a nice sense of smelling.

HARROW, n. An instrument of agriculture, formed of pieces of timber sometimes crossing each other, and set with iron teeth. It is drawn over plowed land to level it and break the clods, and to cover seed when sown.

HARROW, v.t. To draw a harrow over, for the purpose of breaking clods and leveling the surface, or for covering seed sown; as, to harrow land or ground.

1. To break or tear with a harrow.

Will he harrow the valleys after thee? Job 39:10.

2. To tear; to lacerate; to torment.

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul--

3. To pillage; to strip; to lay waste by violence. [Not used.]

4. To disturb; to agitate.

HARROWED, pp. Broken or smoothed by a harrow.

HARROWER, n. One who harrows.

1. A hawk.

HARROWING, ppr. Breaking or leveling with a harrow.

HARRY, v.t.

1. To strip; to pillage. [See Harrow.]

2. To harass; to agitate; to tease.

HARRY, v.i. To make harassing incursions.

HARSH, a.

1. Rough to the touch; rugged; grating; as harsh sand; harsh cloth; opposed to smooth.

2. Sour; rough to the taste; as harsh fruit.

3. Rough to the ear; grating; discordant; jarring; as a harsh sound; harsh notes; a harsh voice.

4. Austere; crabbed; morose; peevish. Civilization softens the harsh temper or nature of man.

5. Rough; rude; abusive; as harsh words; a harsh reflection.

6. Rigorous; severe.

Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charm’d.

HARSHLY, adv. Roughly; in a harsh manner.

1. Sourly; austerely.

2. Severely; morosely; crabbedly; as, to speak or answer harshly.

3. Roughly; rudely; with violence; as, to treat a person harshly.

4. Roughly; with a grating sound; unpleasantly.

It would sound harshly in her ears.

HARSHNESS, n. Roughness to the touch; opposed to softness and smoothness.

1. Sourness; austereness; as the harshness of fruit.

2. Roughness to the ear; as the harshness of sound or of a voice, or of verse.

‘Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

3. Roughness of temper; moroseness; crabbedness; peevishness.

4. Roughness in manner or words; severity; as the harshness of reproof.

HARSLET, HASLET, n. The heart, liver, lights, etc. of a hog.

HART, n. A stag or male deer, an animal of the cervine genus.

HARTBEEST, n. The quanga, or cervine antelope of Africa.

HARTROYAL, n. A plant.

HARTSHORN, n. The horn of the hart or male deer. The scrapings or raspings of this horn are medicinal, and used in decoctions, ptisans, etc. Hartshorn jelly is nutritive and strengthening. Hartshorn calcined by a strong and long continued heat, is changed into a white earth, which is employed in medicine as an absorbent. The salt of hartshorn is powerful sudorific, and hartshorn yields also a pungent volatile spirit.

The jelly of hartshorn is simply gelatine; the earth remaining after calcination, is phosphate of lime; the salt and spirit of hartshorn are muriate of ammonia, with a little animal oil.

Hartshorn plantain, a species of Plantago.

HARTSTONGUE, n. [See Tongue.] A plant, a species of Asplenium.

HARTWORT, n. The name of certain plants of the genera, Seseli, Tordylium, and Buplerum.

HARUSPICE, n. [L. haruspex, from specio, to view.]

In Roman history, a person who pretended to foretell future events by inspecting the entrails of beasts sacrificed, or watching the circumstances attending their slaughter, or their manner of burning and the ascent of the smoke.

HARUSPICY, n. Divination by the inspection of victims.

HARVEST, n. [L. acerbus.]

1. The season of reaping and gathering in corn or other crops. It especially refers to the time of collecting corn or grain, which is the chief food of men, as wheat and rye. In Egypt and Syria, the wheat harvest is in April and May; in the south of Europe and of the United States, in June; in the Northern states of America, in July; and in the north of Europe, in August and September. In the United States, the harvest of maiz is mostly in October.

2. The ripe corn or grain collected and secured in barns or stacks. The harvest this year is abundant.

3. The product of labor; fruit or fruits.

Let us the harvest of our labor eat.

4. Fruit or fruits; effects; consequences.

He that sows iniquity will reap a harvest of woe.

5. In Scripture, harvest signifies figuratively the proper season for business.

He that sleepeth in harvest, is a son that causeth shame. Proverbs 10:5.

Also, a people whose sins have ripened them for judgment. Joel 3:13.

Also, the end of the world. Matthew 13:39.

Also, a seasonable time for instructing men in the gospel. Matthew 9:37-38.

H`ARVEST, v.t. To reap or gather ripe corn and other fruits for the use of man and beast.

HARVESTED, pp. Reaped and collected, as ripe corn and fruits.

HARVESTER, n. A reaper; a laborer in gathering grain.