Dictionary of the English Language, COMBINING EXPLANATION WITH ETYMOLOGY: AND ILLUSTRATED BY QUOTATIONS FROM THE The WORDS―with those of the same family, in German, Dutch and The EXPLANATIONS are deduced from the primitive Meaning through The QUOTATIONS are arranged Chronologically from the earliest R39n 1858 712 A NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY L. L is called by B. Jonson a letter half-vowelish, which though the Italians (especially the Florentines) abhor, we keep entire with the Latins, and so pronounce. It is not used (says Wilkins) by the Brasileans, nor the men of Japan: others style it the sweetest of all letters. It melteth (B. Jonson adds) in the sounding, and is therefore called a liquid, the tongue striking the root of the palate gently; Wilkins, the top of the tongue striking against the foremost part of the palate. It unites very easily with C and G in pronunciation, as in Clinch, Gloom, (qqv.) It is doubled, where the vowel sounds hard upon it; with no necessity: unless a syllable follow which may require the continuance of its sound; as in kil-ling, fil-ling, wil-ling. pour LAB. "I am no lab;" i.e. no be-lab, or blab; Dut. Labberen. (See BLAB.) Consequentially,forth from the lips whatever occurs to us; to tell all that we think or know; to prate or talk, thoughtlessly, carelessly, without reserve or discrimination. LA'BIAL, adj. The Hebrews have been diligent in it, and have assigned, lips.-Wilkins. Real Character, pt. iii. c. 14. P and B are labial: Ph and Bh, or F and V. are labio- LA'BILE. Lat. Labi, to fall or fail. I sente you to repe that whereon ye bestowed no labour With wery trauel, and with laborous paines Wyatt. Complaint vpon Loue, &c. He [Julius Cæsar] labourously and studiously discussed controversies.-Sir T. Elyot. The Governor, b. iii. c. 10. There is greater store growing in the tops of the mounSee tains then below in the valleis: but it is wonderfull laboursome and also dangerous traueiling vp vnto them and downe againe, by reason of the height and steepenesse of the hilles. Hackluyt. Voyages, vol. iii. p. 824. But sensibility and intelligence, being by their nature and essence free must be labile, and by their lability may actually LA'BOUR, v. LA'BOURSOME. To work hard; to work with difficulty or diligence; diligence, with difficulty, with pain; to exert, to to bear up against or support, or sustain with persist, pursue, or prosecute with care or dili banging downe on garlands or crownes, a labando gence, pain or difficulty; to do any thing with ffaling downe," (Minshew.) Skinner prefers the Ger. Lapp. See LAP. Any thing falling or depending, suspended or title or description, appended, arpended; a name, , (as now used,) otherwise affixed. Then haste thou a labell, that is shapen like a rule, saue that it is strait and hath no plates on either ende. Chaucer. The Astrolabie. Tensile label'd to my will. It my beautie] shalbe inuentoried and euery particle and The said Sir William said on his oth in the tenth yeare of Tatil the subtlest of their conjurors Holinshed. Rich. II. an. 1390. exertion or effort. Adam, well may we labour still to dress Who but felt of late, Milton. Paradise Lost, b. ii. Then we caused the laborant with an iron rod dexterously to stir the kindled part of the nitre. Boyle. Works, vol. i. p. 604. Pope. Homer. Iliad, b. ix. Laboriousness shuts the doors and stops all the avenues of the mind, whereby a temptation would enter, and (which is yet more) leaves no void room for it to dwell there, if by any accident it should chance to creep in.-South, vol. vi. Ser. 10. Whence labour or pain is commonly reckoned an ingredient of industry; and laboriousness is a name signifying it. .Barrow, vol. iii. Ser. 18. |