Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary

GLOSSARY

Essay_601-650.indd 649 12/27/11 9:27 PM GLOSSARY Page 4 Good offices: acts of good, voluntarily tendered. Touched with contempt: affected by another's undervaluing or scorn. Pungent: piercing, sharp. Sensibility: quickness of perception; a disposition to being easily or strongly affected; delicacy. Page 6 Nobler arts: the liberal arts or sciences. "Arts that respect the mind were ever reputed nobler than those that serve the body" -Ben Jonson (quoted in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, under "Art"). Relish: taste; delight in; power of perceiving excellence. Incommodious: inconvenient; vexatious. Page 7 Melancholy: pensiveness; quietly serious thoughtfulness, sadness, or longing. Nice: accurate in judgment to minute exactness ; superfluously exact. f/acancy: emptiness; sense of longing. Want: need; deficiency. Sensibly: quickly; keenly. Page 8 Bottle companion: drinking friend. Essay_601-650.indd 650 12/27/11 9:27 PM 650 GLOSSARY Page 9 Mean: lacking dignity; spiritless; low in worth or power. Pusillanimous: mean-spirited; cowardly. Page 10 Entertain jealousy: regard with suspicious fear, vigilance, or caution. Page 11 Want: absence. Page 12 Licentiousness: boundless liberty; contempt of just restraint. Rouzed: aroused; excited to thought or action. Animated: encouraged; incited. Page 15 Levity: inconstancy or changeableness; unsteadiness; trifling gaiety. Artifice: trickery; fraud; stratagem. Faction: tumult, discord, or dissention, especially as arising from disputes among civil or religious parties. Page 16 Humours: general turn or temper of mind; present disposition. Affectedpopularity: tried to please the crowd. Licentious: unrestrained by law or morality. Page 17 Fiefs: estates. Doge: title of the chief magistrate of the republic of Venice. Page 18 Factions: contending parties in a state. Elevation: exaltation; dignity. Page 20 Proscription: a sentence of death and confiscation of one's property. Page 21 Pals conquis: conquered lands. Page 26 Meanness: want of dignity; low rank. Desert: degree of merit or demerit. Page 27 Enow: the plural of enough. Page 28 Panegyric: a eulogy or encomium; high praise. Religious: exact; strict. Fain: to wish; to desire fondly. Page 30 A woman from the stews: a prostitute. Page 31 Pro oris & focis: in defense of our altars and our fires. Page 32 Soldan: sultan; the supreme ruler of one or another of the great Mohammedan powers or countries of the Middle Ages. Page 33 Mamalukes: members of the military body, originally composed of Caucasian slaves, that seized the throne of Egypt in 1254 and continued to form the ruling class in that country during Essay_651-686.indd 651 12/27/11 9:29 PM 651 GLOSSARY the eighteenth century. Pra:torian bands: the bodyguards of the emperors of ancient Rome. Prodigal: lavish; wasteful. Page 34 In no stead: to no advantage. Page 38 Palliate: to cover with excuse; to extenuate or soften by favorable representations. Appellation: name or title. Peculiar: appropriate; belonging to any one with exclusion of others. Tyes: ties; bonds or obligations. Factitious: made by art, in opposition to what is made by nature. Page 39 Exclaims: cries out. Probity: honesty; sincerity; veracity. Ascendant: superiority; elevation. Page 40 Refractory: obstinate; stubborn; perverse; unmanageable; rebellious. Intestine: internal; domestic. Page 41 Owned: acknowledged. Page 43 Courts: jurisdictions; authorities. Page 47 f/iolent: forceful. Page 48 Temerity: great boldness; rashness. Page 49 Ecclesiastical preferments: places of honor or profit in the church. Page 50 Byass: bias; propensity or inclination. Specious: plausible; beautiful. Page 51 God's vicegerent: God's lieutenant; someone entrusted with power by God. Risque: risk. Durst 1: If I dared. Period: end or conclusion. Page 52 In his closet: in privacy or retirement. Page 53 Euthanasia: easy death. Page 55 Extirpating: rooting out; eradicating. Page 58 Aliment: nourishment; food. Page 60 Contrariety: opposition; inconsistency; a quality or position destructive of its opposites. Page 61 Discover: show; exhibit. Page 62 Christendom: the collective body of Christianity; the regions in which the inhabitants profess the Christian religion. Essay_651-686.indd 652 12/27/11 9:29 PM 652 GLOSSARY Page 64 Generous: daring; vigorous; liberal. Page 70 Counterpoise: counterweight; equivalence of force in the opposite side. Page 73 Pernicious: mischievous in the highest degree; destructive. Page 74 Unaccountable: not explicable; not to be solved by reason; not reducible to rule. Credulity: easiness of belief; a readiness to credit. Sublunary: earthly; of this world. Raptures: violent seizures; violence of any pleasing passion; uncommon heat of imagination. Transports: raptures; ecstasy. !/lapses: sudden attacks; emissions or entrances of one thing into another. Page 75 Addresses: petitions. Incensed: angry; enraged. Diffident: lacking in confidence. Egregious: eminent; remarkable...