Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

MISTUNE — MODERATOR

MISTUNE, v.t. To tune wrong or erroneously; to put out of tune.

MISTURN, v.t. To pervert. [Not used.]

MISTUTOR, v.t. To instruct amiss.

MISTY, a. [from mist.] Overspread with mist; filled with very minute drops of rain; as misty weather; a misty atmosphere; a misty night or day.

1. Dim; obscure; clouded; as misty sight.

MISUNDERSTAND, v.t. To misconceive; to mistake; to take in a wrong sense.

MISUNDERSTANDING, ppr. Mistaking the meaning.

MISUNDERSTANDING, n. Misconception; mistake of the meaning; error.

1. Disagreement; difference; dissension; sometimes a softer name for quarrel.

MISUNDERSTOOD, pp. Misconceived; mistaken; understood erroneously.

MISUSAGE, n. misyu’zage. Ill usage; abuse.

MISUSE, v.t. misyu’ze.

1. To treat or use improperly; to use to a bad purpose.

2. To abuse; to treat ill.

MISUSE, n. misyu’se. Ill treatment; improper use; employment to a bad purpose; as the misuse of mercies.

1. Abuse; ill treatment.

2. Wrong application; misapplication; erroneous use; as the misuse of words.

MISUSED, pp. misyu’zed. Improperly used or applied; misapplied; misemployed; abused.

MISUSING, ppr. misyu’zing. Using improperly; abusing; misapplying.

MISVOUCH, v.t. To vouch falsely.

MISWEAR, v.t. To swear ill.

MISWED, v.t. To wed improperly.

MISWEDDED, pp. Ill matched.

MISWEEN, v.i. To misjudge; to distrust.

MISWEND, v.i. To go wrong.

MISWRITE, v.t. [See Write.] To write incorrectly.

MISWROUGHT, a. misraut’. Badly wrought.

MISZEALOUS, a. miszel’ous. Actuated by false zeal.

MITE, n. [Heb. small.]

1. A very small insect of the genus Acarus.

2. In Scripture, a small piece of money, the quarter of a denarius, or about seven English farthings.

3. Any thing proverbially very small; a very little particle or quantity.

4. The twentieth part of a grain.

MITELLA, n. A plant.

MITER, n.

1. A sacerdotal ornament worn on the head by bishops and certain abbots, on solemn occasions.

2. In architecture, an angle of 45 degrees.

3. In Irish history, a sort of base money or coin.

4. Figuratively, the dignity of bishops or abbots.

MITER, v.t. To adorn with a miter.

1. To unite at an angle of 45 degrees.

MITERED, ppr. or a. Wearing a miter.

1. Honored with the privilege of wearing a miter.

2. Cut or joined at an angle of 45 degrees.

MITHRIDATE, n. In pharmacy, an antidote against poison, or a composition in form of an electuary, supposed to serve either as a remedy or a preservative against poison. It takes its name from Mithridates, king of Pontus, the inventor.

MITHRIDATIC, a. Pertaining to mithridate, or its inventor, Mithridates.

MITIGABLE, a. That may be mitigated.

MITIGANT, a. [L. mitigans, mitigo, from mitis, mild.]

1. Softening; lenient; lenitive.

2. Diminishing; easing; as pain.

MITIGATE, v.t. [L. mitigo, from mitis, soft, mild.]

1. To alleviate, as suffering; to assuage; to lessen; as, to mitigate pain or grief.

And counsel mitigates the greatest smart.

2. To make less severe; as, to mitigate doom.

3. To abate; to make less rigorous; to moderate; as, to mitigate cold; to mitigate the severity of the season.

4. To temper; to moderate; to soften in harshness or severity.

We could wish that the rigor of their opinions were allayed and mitigated.

5. To calm; to appease; to moderate; as, to mitigate the fierceness of party.

6. To diminish; to render more tolerable; as, to mitigate the evils or calamities of life; to mitigate punishment.

7. To reduce in amount or severity; as, to mitigate a penalty.

8. To soften, or make mild and accessible; in a literal sense.

It was this opinion which mitigated kings into companions. [Unusual.]

MITIGATED, pp. Softened; alleviated; moderated; diminished.

MITIGATING, ppr. Softening; alleviating; tempering; moderating; abating.

MITIGATION, n. [L. mitigatio.] Alleviation; abatement or diminution of any thing painful, harsh, severe, afflictive or calamitous; as the mitigation of pain, grief, rigor, severity, punishment or penalty.

MITIGATIVE, a. Lenitive; tending to alleviate.

MITIGATOR, n. He or that which mitigates.

MITTEN, n.

1. A cover for the hand, worn to defend it from cold or other injury. It differs from a glove, in not having a separate cover for each finger.

2. A cover for the arm only.

To handle without mittens, to treat roughly; a popular colloquial phrase.

MITTENT, a. [L. mittens, from mitto, to send.]

Sending forth; emitting. [Not used.]

MITTIMUS, n. [L. we send.] In law, a precept or command in writing, under the hand or hand and seal of a justice of the peace or other proper officer, directed to the keeper of a prison, requiring him to imprison an offender; a warrant of commitment to prison.

1. A writ for removing records from one court to another.

MITU, n. A fowl of the turkey kind, found in Brazil.

MITY, a. [from mite.] Having or abounding with mites.

MIX, v.t. pret. and pp. mixed or mixt. [L. misceo, mixtum; Heb. to mix.]

1. To unite or blend promiscuously two or more ingredients into a mass or compound; applied both to solids and liquids; as, to mix flour and salt; to mix wines.

2. To join; to associate; to unite with in company.

Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people. Hosea 7:8.

3. To join; to mingle.

You mix your sadness with some fear.

4. To unite with a crowd or multitude.

MIX, v.i. To become united or blended promiscuously in a mass or compound. Oil and water will not mix without the intervention of a third substance.

1. To be joined or associated; as, to mix with the multitude, or to mix in society.

MIXED, pp. United in a promiscuous mass or compound; blended; joined; mingled; associated.

1. a. Promiscuous; consisting of various kinds or different things; as a mixed multitude.

MIXEN, n. A dunghill; a laystall.

MIXER, n. One who mixes or mingles.

MIXING, ppr. Uniting or blending in a mass or compound; joining in company; associating.

MIXTILINEAL, MIXTILINEAR, a. [L. mixtus, mixed, and linea, line.]

Containing a mixture of lines, right, curved, etc.

MIXTION, n. [L. mixtus.] Mixture; promiscuous assemblage.

MIXTLY, adv. With mixture.

MIXTURE, n. [L. mixtura.] The act of mixing, or state of being mixed. Compounds are made by the mixture of different substances.

1. A mass or compound, consisting of different ingredients blended without order. In this life there is a mixture of good and evil. Most wines in market are base mixtures.

2. The ingredient added and mixed. Cicero doubted whether it is possible for a community to exist without a prevailing mixture of piety in its constitution.

3. In pharmacy, a liquid medicine which receives into its composition not only extracts, salts and other substances dissolvable in water, but earths, powders and other substances not dissolvable.

4. In chimistry, mixture differs from combination. In mixture, the several ingredients are blended without an alteration of the substances, each of which still retains its own nature and properties. In combination, the substances unite by chimical attraction, and losing their distinct properties, they form a compound differing in its properties from either of the ingredients.

MIZMAZE, n. A cant word for a maze or labyrinth.

MIZZEN, n. miz’n. In sea-language, the aftermost of the fixed sails of a ship, extended sometimes by a gaff, and sometimes by a yard which crosses the mast obliquely.

MIZZEN-MAST, n. The mast which supports the after-sails, and stands nearest to the stern.

MIZZLE, v.i. To mistle. [See Mistle.]

MIZZY, n. A bog or quagmire.

MNEMONIC, a. nemon’ic. [infra.] Assisting the memory.

MNEMONICS, n. [from Gr. to remember.] The art of memory; the precepts and rules intended to teach the method of assisting the memory.

MO, a. More.

MOAN, v.t. To lament; to deplore; to bewail with an audible voice.

Ye floods, ye woods, ye echoes, moan

My dear Columbo dead and gone.

MOAN, v.i. To grieve; to make lamentations.

Unpitied and unheard, where misery moans.

MOAN, n. Lamentation; audible expression of sorrow; grief expressed in words or cried.

Sullen moans,

Hollow groans.

MOANED, pp. Lamented; deplored.

MOANFUL, a. Sorrowful; expressing sorrow.

MOANFULLY, adv. With lamentation.

MOANING, ppr. Lamenting; bewailing.

MOAT, n. In fortification, a ditch or deep trench round the rampart of a castle or other fortified place. It is sometimes filled with water.

MOAT, v.t. To surround with a ditch for defense; as a moated castle.

MOB, n. [from L. mobilis, movable, variable.]

1. A crowd or promiscuous multitude of people, rude, tumultuous and disorderly.

2. A disorderly assembly.

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

3. A huddled dress.

MOB, v.t. To attack in a disorderly crowd; to harass tumultuously.

1. To wrap up in a cowl or vail.

MOBBISH, a. Like a mob; tumultuous; mean; vulgar.

MOBCAP, n. A plain cap or head-dress for females.

MOBILE, a. Movable. [Not used.]

MOBILE, n. [L. mobilis.] The mob; the populace.

Primum mobile, in the ancient astronomy, a ninth heaven or sphere, supposed to be beyond the fixed stars, and to be the first mover of all the lower spheres.

MOBILITY, n. [L. mobilitas, from moveo, to move.]

1. Susceptibility of motion; capacity of being moved.

2. Aptitude to motion; activity; readiness to move.

3. In cant language, the populace.

4. Fickleness; inconstancy.

MOBLE, v.t. To wrap the head in a hood.

MOCCASON, n. A shoe or cover for the feet, made of deer-skin or other soft leather, without a sole, and ornamented on the upper side; the customary shoe worn by the native Indians.

MOCHA-STONE, n. Dendritic agate; a mineral in the interior of which appear brown, reddish brown, blackish or green delineations of shrubs destitute of leaves. These in some cases may have been produced by the filtration of the oxyds of iron and manganese; but in other cases they appear to be vegetable fibers, sometimes retaining their natural form and color, and sometimes coated by oxyd of iron.

MOCK, v.t.

1. Properly, to imitate; to mimick; hence, to imitate in contempt or derision; to mimick for the sake of derision; to deride by mimicry.

2. To deride; to laugh at; to ridicule; to treat with scorn or contempt.

As he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, saying, go up, thou bald head. 2 Kings 2:23; Mark 10:34.

3. To defeat; to illude; to disappoint; to deceive; as, to mock expectation.

Thou hast mocked me and told me lies. Judges 16:10.

4. To fool; to tantalize; to play on in contempt.

He will not

Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence.

MOCK, v.i. To make sport in contempt or in jest, or to speak jestingly.

When thou mockest, shall no man make thee ashamed? Job 11:3.

MOCK, n. Ridicule; derision; sneer; an act manifesting contempt.

Fools make a mock at sin. Proverbs 14:9.

What shall be the portion of those who make a mock at every thing sacred?

1. Imitation; mimicry. [Little used.]

MOCK, a. False, counterfeit; assumed; imitating reality, but not real.

That superior greatness and mock majesty--

MOCKABLE, a. Exposed to derision. [Little used.]

MOCKAGE, n. Mockery. [Not used.]

MOCKED, pp. Imitated or mimicked in derision; laughed at; ridiculed; defeated; illuded.

MOCKER, n. One that mocks; a scorner; a scoffer; a derider.

MOCKERY, n. The act of deriding and exposing to contempt, by mimicking the words or actions of another.

1. Derision; ridicule; sportive insult or contempt; contemptuous merriment at persons or things.

Grace at meals is now generally so performed as to look more like mockery upon devotion, than any solemn application of the mind to God.

2. Sport; subject of laughter.

Of the holy place they made a mockery.

3. Vain imitation or effort; that which deceives, disappoints or frustrates.

It is as the air, invulnerable,

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

4. Imitation; counterfeit appearance; false show.

And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances.

MOCKESON, n. The name of a serpent.

MOCKING, ppr. Imitating in contempt; mimicking; ridiculing by mimicry; treating with sneers and scorn; defeating; deluding.

MOCKING, n. Derision; insult.

MOCKING-BIRD, n. The mocking thrush of America; a bird of the genus Turdus.

MOCKINGLY, adv. By way of derision; in contempt.

MOCKING-STOCK, n. A butt of sport.

MOCKLE. [See Mickle.]

MOCK-LEAD, MOCKORE, n. A sulphuret of zink, the same as blend, which see.

MOCK-ORANGE, n. A plant of the genus Philadelphus.

MOCK-PRIVET, n. A plant of the genus Phillyrea.

MODAL, a. [See Mode.] Consisting in mode only; relating to form; having the form without the essence or reality; as the modal diversity of the faculties of the soul.

MODALITY, n. The quality of being modal, or being in form only.

MODE, n. [L. modus, metior. The primary sense of mode is measure hence form. Measure is from extending, the extent, hence a limit, and hence the derivative sense of restraining. See Meet and Measure.]

1. Manner of existing or being; manner; method; form; fashion; custom; way; as the mode of speaking; the mode of dressing; modes of receiving or entertaining company.

The duty of itself being resolved on, the mode of doing it may be easily found.

It is applicable to particular acts, or to a series of acts, or to the common usage of a city of nation. One man has a particular mode of walking; another has a singular mode of dressing his hair. We find it necessary to conform in some measure to the usual modes of dress.

2. Gradation; degree.

What modes of sight between each wide extreme!

3. State; quality.

4. In metaphysics, the dependence or affection of a substance. Such complex ideas as contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependencies or affections of substances, Locke calls modes. Of these he makes two kinds; simple modes, which are only variations or different combinations of the same idea, as a dozen, which consists of so many units added together; and mixed modes, which are compounded of simple ideas of several kinds, as beauty, which is compounded of color and figure.

A mode is that which cannot subsist in and of itself, but is esteemed as belonging to and subsisting by the help of some substance, which for that reason is called its subject.

5. In music, a regular disposition of the air and accompaniments relative to certain principal sounds, on which a piece of music is formed, and which are called the essential sounds of the mode.

6. In grammar, a particular manner of conjugating verbs to express manner of action or being, as affirmation, command, condition and the like; usually and not very properly written mood. Mood is a word of different signification. [See Mood.]

7. A kind of silk.

MODEL, n. mod’l. [L. modulus, from modus.]

1. A pattern of something to be made; any thing of a particular form, shape or construction, intended for imitation; primarily, a small pattern; a form in miniature of something to be made on a larger scale; as the model of a building; the model of a fort.

2. A mold; something intended to give shape to castings.

3. Pattern; example; as, to form a government on the model of the British or American constitution.

4. Standard; that by which a thing is to be measured.

He that despairs, measures Providence by his own contracted model.

5. In painting and sculpture, that which is to be copied or imitated; as the naked human form.

6. A pattern; any thing to be imitated. Take Cicero, lord Chatham or Burke, as a model of eloquence; take Washington as a model of prudence, integrity and patriotism; above all, let Christ be the model of our benevolence, humility, obedience and patience.

7. A copy; representation; something made in imitation of real life; as anatomical models, representing the parts of the body. General Pfiffer constructed a model of the mountainous parts of Switzerland.

MODEL, v.t. To plan or form in a particular manner; to shape; to imitate in planning or forming; as, to model a house or a government; to model an edifice according to the plan delineated.

MODELED, pp. Formed according to a model; planned; shaped; formed.

MODELER, n. A planner; a contriver.

MODELING, ppr. Forming according to a model; planning; forming; shaping.

MODERATE, a. [L. moderatus, from moderor, to limit, from modus, a limit.]

1. Literally, limited; restrained; hence, temperate; observing reasonable bounds in indulgence; as moderate in eating or drinking, or in other gratifications.

2. Limited in quantity; not excessive or expensive. He keeps a moderate table.

3. Restrained in passion, ardor or temper; not violent; as moderate men of both parties.

4. Not extreme in opinion; as a moderate Calvinist or Lutheran.

5. Placed between extremes; holding the mean or middle place; as reformation of a moderate kind.

6. Temperate; not extreme, violent or rigorous; as moderate weather; a moderate winter; moderate heat; a moderate breeze of wind.

7. Of a middle rate; as men of moderate abilities.

8. Not swift; as a moderate walk.

MODERATE, v.t. To restrain from excess of any kind; to reduce from a state of violence; to lessen; to allay; to repress; as, to moderate rage, action, desires, etc.; to moderate heat or wind.

1. To temper; to make temperate; to qualify.

By its astringent quality, it moderates the relaxing quality of warm water.

MODERATE, v.i. To become less violent, severe, rigorous or intense. The cold or winter usually moderates in March; the heat of summer moderates in September.

MODERATED, pp. Reduced in violence, rigor or intensity; allayed; lessened; tempered; qualified.

MODERATELY, adv. Temperately; mildly; without violence.

1. In a middle degree;; not excessively; as water moderately warm.

Each nymph but moderately fair.

MODERATENESS, n. State of being moderate; temperateness; a middle state between extremes; as the moderateness of the weather; used commonly of things, as moderation is of persons.

MODERATING, ppr. Reducing in violence or excess; allaying; tempering; becoming more mild.

MODERATION, n. [L. moderatio.] The state of being moderate, or of keeping a due mean between extremes or excess of violence. The General’s moderation after victory was more honorable than the victory itself.

In moderation placing all my glory,

While tories call me whig, and whigs a tory.

1. Restraint of violent passions or indulgence of appetite. Eat and drink with moderation; indulge with moderation in pleasures and exercise.

2. Calmness of mind; equanimity; as, to bear prosperity or adversity with moderation.

3. Frugality in expenses.

MODERATOR, n. He or that which moderates or restrains. Contemplation is an excellent moderator of the passions.

1. The person who presides over a meeting or assembly of people to preserve order, propose questions, regulate the proceedings and declare the vote; as the moderator of a town meeting or of a society.