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R is called the canine letter, because it is uttered with some resemblance to the growl or snarl of a cur: it has one constant sound in English, such as it has in other languages; as red, rose, more, muriatick:
in words derived from the Greek, it is followed by an h, rhapsody: r is never mute, unless the second r may be accounted mute, where two rr are used; as myrrh.
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To Rabate. In falconry, to recover a hawk to the fist again.
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Rearmouse. The leather-winged bat.
Some war with rearmice for their leathern wings
To make small elves coats. Shakesp.
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Red. Of the colour of blood, of one of the primitive colours, which is subdivided into many; as scarlet, vermilion, crimson.
His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. Gen. xlix. 12.
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Reprobate. A man lost to virtue; a wretch abandoned to wickedness.
I acknowledge myself for a reprobate, a villain, a traytor to the king, and the most unworthy man that ever lived. Ral.
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Reptile. An animal that creeps upon many feet.
Terrestial animals may be divided into quadrupeds or reptiles, which have many feet, and serpents which have no feet. Locke's Elements of Natural Philosophy.
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Rhabdomancy. Divination by a wand.
Of peculiar rhabdomancy is that which is used in mineral discoveries, with a forked hazel, commonly called Moses's rod, which, freely held forth, will stir and play if any mine be under it. Brown's Vulgar Errours.
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Rhetorick. The act of speaking not merely with propriety, but with art and elegance.
Grammar teacheth us to speak properly, rhetorick instructs to speak elegantly. Baker's Reflections on Learning.
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Rhinoceros. A vast beast in the East Indies armed with a horn in his front.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or Hyrcanian tyger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Shakesp. Macbeth.
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Ribaldry. Mean, lewd, brutal language.
Mr. Cowley asserts, that obscenity has no place in wit; Buckingham says, ‘tis an ill sort of wit, which has nothing more to support it than bare-face ribaldry. Dryden.
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Rice. One of the esculent grains: it hath its grains disposed into a panicle, which are almost of an oval figure, and are covered with a thick husk, somewhat like barley: this grain is greatly cultivated in most of the Eastern countries.
Rice is the food of two thirds of mankind; it is kindly to human constitutions, proper for the consumptive, and those subject to hæmorrhages. Arbuthnot.
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Ridicule. Wit of that species that provokes laughter.
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burthen of some merry song. Pope.
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Risibility. The quality of laughing.
Whatever the philosophers may talk of their risibility, neighing is a more noble expression than laughing. Arbuth.
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Rubicund. Inclining to redness.
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Ruffian. A brutal, boisterous, mischievous fellow; a cutthroat; a robber; a murderer.
Have you a ruffian that will swear? drink? dance?
Revel the night? rob? murder? Shakesp. Henry IV.
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To Run. To move swiftly; to ply the legs in such a manner, as that both feet are at every step off the ground at the same time; to make haste; to pass with very quick pace.
Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Prov.
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(Our illustrated abridgement of Boswell’s Life of Johnson will resume next week. Classix Comix is made possible in part through a generous grant from the Bob’s Bowery Bar™ Foundation for the Uncommercial Arts: “Allow me to recommend Bob’s Bowery Bar’s ‘Eye-Opener Special’: a tall schooner of Bob’s justly-famed ‘basement-brewed’ house bock with a large organic raw egg in it and a shot of Windsor Canadian on the side – a bargain at only two dollars!
{Offer good between the hours of 6am to 9pm, seven days a week; limit four ‘specials’ per customer.}” – Horace P. Sternwall, host of Bob’s Bowery Bar’s Midnight Tales with Horace P. Sternwall, exclusively on the Dumont Television Network, Saturdays at midnight, EST.)
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