Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

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NUNCHION — NYS

NUNCHION, n. A portion of food taken between meals. [qu. from noon, or a corruption of luncheon.]

NUNCIATURE, n. [See Nuncio.] The office of a nuncio.

NUNCIO, n. [L., a messenger.]

1. An embassador from the pope to some catholic prince or state, or who attends some congress or assembly as the pope’s representative.

2. A messsenger; one who brings intelligence.

NUNCUPATE, v.t. [L.] To declare publicly or solemnly. [Not used.]

NUNCUPATION, n. A naming.

NUNCUPATIVE, a. [L., to declare.]

1. Nominal; existing only in name.

2. Publicly or solemnly declaratory.

3. Verbal, not written. A nuncupative will or testament is one which is made by the verbal declaration of the testator, and depends merely on oral testimony for proof, though afterwards reduced to writing.

NUNCUPATORY, a. [L., to declare.]

1. Nominal; existing only in name.

2. Publicly or solemnly declaratory.

3. Verbal, not written. A nuncupative will or testament is one which is made by the verbal declaration of the testator, and depends merely on oral testimony for proof, though afterwards reduced to writing.

NUNDINAL, a. [L., a fair or market, every nine days.]

1. Pertaining to a fair or to a market day.

2. A nundinal letter, among the Romans, was one of the eight first letters of the alphabet, which were repeated successively from the first to the last dya of the year. One of these always expressed the market days, which returned every nine days.

NUNDINAL, n. A nundinal letter.

NUNDINATE, v.i. To buy and sell at fairs. [Not used.]

NUNDINATION, n. Traffick in fairs. [Not used.]

NUNNATION, n. In Arabic grammar, from the name of N, the pronunciation of n at the end of words.

NUNNERY, n. A house in which nuns reside; a cloister in which females under a vow of chastity and devoted to religion, reside during life.

NUPTIAL, a. [L., to marry.]

1. Pertaining to marriage; done at a wedding; as nuptial rites and ceremonies; nuptial torch.

2. Constituting marriage; as the nuptial knot or band.

The Bible has mitigated the horrors of war; it has given effectual obligation to the nuptial vow.

NUPTIALS, n. plu. Marriage, which see.

NURSE, n.

1. A woman that has the care of infants, or a woman employed to tend the children of others.

2. A woman who suckles infants.

3. A woman that has the care of a sick person.

4. A man who has the care of the sick.

5. A person that breeds, educates or protects; hence, that which breeds, brings up or causes to grow; as Greece, the nurse of the liberal arts.

6. An old woman; in contempt.

7. The state of being nursed; as, to put a child to nurse.

8. In composition, that which supplies food; as a nurse-pond.

NURSE, v.t.

1. To tend, as infants; as, to nurse a child.

2. To suckle; to nourish at the breast.

3. To attend and take care of in child-bed; as, to nurse a woman in her illness.

4. To tend the sick; applied to males and females.

5. To feed; to maintain; to bring up. Isaiah 60:4.

6. To cherish; to foster; to encourage; to promote growth in. We say, to nurse a feeble animal or plant.

By what hands has vice been nursed into so uncontrolled a dominion?

7. To manage with care and economy, with a view to increase; as, to nurse our national resources.

NURSED, pp. Tended in infancy or sickness; nourished from the breast maintained; cherished.

NURSER, n. One that cherishes or encourages growth.

NURSERY, n.

1. The place or apartment in a house appropriated to the care of children.

2. A place where young trees are propagated for the purpose of being transplanted; a plantation of young trees.

3. The place where any thing is fostered and the growth promoted.

To see fair Padua, nursery of arts.

So we say, a nursery of thieves or of rogues. Ale houses and dram-shops are the nurseries of intemperance.

Christian families are the nurseries of the church on earth, as she is the nursery of the church in heaven.

4. Taht which forms and educates. Commerce is the nursery of seamen.

5. The act of nursing. [Little used.]

6. That which is the object of a nurse’s care.

NURSING, ppr. Tending; nourishing at the breast; education; maintaining.

NURSLING, n.

1. An infant; a child.

2. One that is nursed.

NURTURE, n.

1. That which nourishes; food; diet.

2. That which promotes growth; education; instruction. Ephesians 6:4.

NURTURE, v.t.

1. To feed; to nourish.

2. To educate; to bring or train up.

He was nurtured where he was born.

NUSANCE. [See Nuisance.]

NUT, n. [It seems to be allied to knot, a bunch or hard lump.]

1. The fruit of certain trees and shrubs, consisting of a hard shell inclosing a kernel. A nut is properly the pericarp of the fruit. Various kinds of nuts are distinguished; as walnut, chestnut, hazlenut, butternut.

2. In mechanics, a small cylinder or other body, with teeth or projections corresponding with the teeth or grooves of a wheel.

3. The projection near the eye of an anchor.

NUT, v.t. To gather nuts.

NUTATION, n. [L., a nodding, to nod.] In astronomy, a kind of tremulous motion of the axis of the earth, by which in its annual revolution it is twice inclined to the ecliptic, and as often returns to its former position.

NUT-BREAKER. [See Nutcracker.]

NUT-BROWN, a. Brown as a nut long kept and dried.

NUT-CRACKER, n.

1. An instrument for cracking nuts.

2. A bird of the genus Corvus; the nut-breaker.

NUTGALL, n. An excrescence of the oak.

NUT-HATCH, n. The common name of birds of the genus sitta. The common European nut-hatch is called also nut-jobber and nut-pecker.

NUT-HOOK, n. A pole with a hook at the end to pull down boughs for gathering the nuts; also, the name given to a thief that stole goods from a window by means of a hook.

NUTMEG, n. [L. But it may be questionable whether the last syllable in English, meg, is not from L., mace, the bark that envelops the nut.] The fruit of a tree of the genus Myristica, growing in the isles of the East Indies and South Sea. The tree gorws to the gighth of thirty feet, producing numerous branches. The color of the bark of the trunk is a reddish brown; that of the young branches a bright green. The fruit is of the kind called drupe, that is, a pulpy pericarp without valves, containing a nut or kernel. The covering of this nut is the mace. The nutmeg is an aromatic, very grateful to the taste and smell, and much used in cookery.

NUTRICATION, n. Manner of feeding or being fed. [Not in use.]

NUTRIENT, a. [L.] Nourishing; promoting growth.

NUTRIENT, n. Any substance which nourishes by promoting the growth or repairing the waste of animal bodies.

NUTRIMENT, n. [L., from to nourish.]

1. That which nourishes; that which promotes the growth or repairs the natural waste of animal bodies, or that which promotes the growth of vegetables; food; aliment.

2. That which promotes enlargement or improvement; as the nutriment of the mind.

NUTRIMENTAL, a. Having the qualities of food; alimental.

NUTRITION, n. [L., to nourish.]

1. The act or process of promoting the growth or repairing the waste of animal bodies; the act or process of promoting growth in vegetables.

2. That which nourishes; nutriment.

Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot, to draw nutrition, propagate, and rot.

There is no nutrition in ardent spirits.

NUTRITIOUS, a. Nourishing; promoting the growth or repairing the waste of animal bodies. Milk is very nutritious.

NUTRITIVE, a. Having the quality of nourishing; nutrimental; alimental; as a nutritive food.

NUTRITURE, n. The quality of nourishing. [Not used.]

NUT-SHELL, n.

1. The hard shell of a nut; the covering of the kernel.

2. Proverbially, a thing of little compass or of little value.

NUT-TREE, n. A tree that bears nuts.

NUZZLE, v.t. [qu. from noursle.] To nurse; to foster. [Vulgar.]

NUZZLE, v.t. [qu. from nose or noursle.] To hide the head, as a child in the mother’s bosom.
NUZZLE, v.t. [qu. from noursle or nestle.] To nestle; to house as in a nest.
NUZZLE, v.i. [qu. from nose.] To go with the nose near the ground, or thrusting the nose into the ground like a swine.

NYCTALOPS, n. [Gr., night and the eye.]

1. One that sees best in the night.

2. One who loses his sight as night comes on, and remains blind till morning.

NYCTALOPY, n.

1. The faculty of seeing best in darkness, or the disorder from which this faculty proceeds.

2. In present usage, the disorder in which the patient loses his sight as night approaches, and remains blind till morning.

NYE, n. A brood or flock of pheasants.

NYLGAU, n. A quadruped of the genus Bos, a native of the interior of India, of a middle size between the cow and the deer. Its body, horns and tail are not unlike those of a bull; the head, neck and legs resemble those of the deer. The color is an ash gray.

NYMPH, n.

1. In mythology, a goddess of the mountains, forests, meadows and waters. According to the ancients, all the world was full of nymphs, some terrestrial, others celestial; and these had names assigned to them according to their place of residence, or the parts of the world over which they were supposed to preside.

2. In poetry, a lady.

NYMPH, n. Another name of the pupa, chrysalis, or aurelia; the second state of an insect, passing to its perfect form.

NYMPHA, n. Another name of the pupa, chrysalis, or aurelia; the second state of an insect, passing to its perfect form.

NYMPHEAN, a. Pertaining to nymphs; inhabited by nymphs; as a nymphean cave.

NYMPHICAL, a. Pertaining to nymphs.

NYMPHISH, a. Relating to nymphs; lady-like.

NYMPHLIKE, a. Resembling nymphs.

NYMPHLY, a. Resembling nymphs.

NYS, [ne and is.] None is; is not.