ture should be granted; but thought by that means Adown he kest it with so puissant wrist, to wrench him to their other desires. Bacon. That back again it did aloft rebound, Sing the Parthian, when transfix'd he lies, And gave against his mother earth a groneful Wrenching the Roman jav'lin from his thighs. sound. Fairy Cacer. Dryden. Antenor 's such a wrest in their affairs, Struggling to get loose, I broke the strings, and That their negotiations all must slacken, murenched out the pegs that fastened my arm to Wanting his nianage. Troilus and Cressiks. the ground. Swift. 3. An instrument to tune. 2. To sprain; to distort. WRESTER. 1. s. [from wrest.] He who O most small fault, wrests. How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show! TO WRE'STLE. V. n. (from wrest.) Which, like an engine, wrencht my frame of na 1. To contend who shall throw the other From the fix'd place; drew from my heart all , down. love, If ever he goes alone again, I 'll never wrestle And added to the gall. Shakspeare: for prize mere. Shakspeere. You wrenched your foot against a stone, and Another, by a fall in wrestling, started the were forced to stay. Swift. end of the clavicle from the sternon. Wiseas. WRENCH. 1. s. [from the verb.] To play or wrestle well, it should be used with those that do it berter. Tezepte. 3. A violent pull or twist. None in the leap spring with so strong a 2. A sprain. bound, Some small part of the foot being injured by a Or firmer in the wrestling press the ground. wrench, the whole leg thereby loses its strength. Locke. 2. To struggle; to contend : followed by 3. Wrenches, in Chaucer, signifies means, with. sleights, subtilties; which is, I believe, I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick, the sense here. To wish him wrestle with affection, He resolved to make his profit of this busi- And never to let Beatrice know of it. Shaky. ness of Britain, as a quarrel for war; and that James knew not how to arrestle Trith despe of Naples as a wrench and mean for peace. Bac. rate contingencies, and so abhorred to be ene TO WREST. v. a. [præstan, Saxon.] tangled in such. Clarends, 3. To twist by violence; to extort by WRE'STLER. n. s. [from wrestle.] writhing or force. 1. One who wrestles; one who professes To wring this sentence, to wrest thereby out the athletick art. of men's hands the knowledge of God's doctrine, When the young wrestlers at their sport gret is without all reason. Ascbam, warm, To what wretched state reserv'd, Old Milo wept to see his naked arm. Deater. Better end here unborn? Why is life giv’n, 'Tis not from whom, but where we live; To be thus wrested froni us? Milton. The place does oft those graces give : Where you charged in person, you were a Great Julius, on the mountains bred, conqueror; the rebels afterwards recovered A flock perhaps, or herd; had led; strength, and wrested that victory from others He, that the world subdued, had been that they had lost to you. Dryden. But the best wrestler on the green. Haller Our country's cause, 2. One who contends in wrestling. That drew our swords, now wrests 'em from our So earnest with thy God, can no ne* care, hands, No sense of danger, interrupt thy prayer? And bid us not delight in Roman blood The sacred wrestler, till a blessing giv'n, Unprofitably shed. Addisol. Quits not his hold, but halting conquers bear't. Addison Disas. 2. To distort; to writhe; to force. WRETCH, 7. s. (precca, Saxon.] I. A miserable mortal. ther against their meaning, Hocker. When I loved, I was a wretcb. Accidence. My father's purposes have been mistook, And some about him have too lavishly She weeps, and says her Henry is deposed; Wrested his meaning ar:d authority. Sbakspeare. He smiles, and says his Edward is install'd; Wrest once the law to your authority; That she, poor wrctcb, for grief can speak no Sbakspeare. To do a great right, do a little wrong. Sbaksp. The butcher takes away the calf, WREST. n.s. (trom the verb.] And binds the ceretch, and beats it when it 1. Distortion; violence. strives. Sbakspeare. Whereas it is concluded, out of weak pre Illustrious wretch! repine not nor reply; mises, that the retaining of divers things in the View not what heav'n ordains with reason's church of England, which other reformed eye; churches have cast out, must needs argue that For bright the object is, the distance is too high we do not well, unless we can shew that they Prie. have done ill; what needeth this wrest, to draw 2. A worthless sorry creature. out from us an accusation of foreign churches? Base-minded wretebes! are your thoughts 59 Hooker. deej ly bemired in the trade of ordinary world2. It is used in Spenser and Shakspeare for lings, as for respect of gain some paultry wool an active or moving power: I suppose, may yield you, to let so much time pass about knowing perfectly her estate? Sitary. from the force of a tilter acting with He now his lance in his rest, Has these poor men in question : Dever saw I more. Wretches so quake; they kneel, they kiss che He 'gan inquire earth, What hard mishap him brought to such distres Forswear themselves as often as they speak. And made that caitif's thrall the thrall of Sbakspears. Spenser. Title of honour, worth and virtue's right, Clarion did at last dedine When they are gone, a company of starved Such rancour in the hearts of mighty men? hungry-wretches shall take their places. Spenser. L'Estraume. When they are weary of wars, and brought 3. It is used by way of slight, or ir ical down to extreme «wretchedness, then they creep pity, or contempt. a little and sue for grace, till they have recoverWhen soon away the wasp doch go: ed their strength again. Spenser. Poor wretch was never frighted so; I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, He thought his wings were much too slow, And duty in his service perishing. Shakspeare. O'erjoy'd they so were parted. Drayton. We have with the feeling lost the very memory Then, if the spider find him fast beset, of such wretchedness as our forefathers endured She issues forth, and runs along her loom: by those wars, of all others the most cruel. She joys to touch the captive in her net, Raleigt. | And drags the little wretch in triumph home. 2. Pitifulness; despicableness. Dryden. Wre’TCHLEŚs. adj. [This is, by I know 4. It is sometimes a word of tenderness, not whose corruption, written for reckas we now say poor thing. less. ] Careless; mindless; hieedless. Excellent wretch. Shakspeare. For any man to put off his present repentance, Chastened but thus, and thus his lesson taught, on contemplation of a possibility that his lasser The happy wretch she put into her breast. repentance may serve the turn, is the most Sidney. wretchless presumption, and hath no promise of .WRE'TCHED. adj. (from wretcb.] mercy annexed to it. Hammond. s. Miserable ; unhappy: If persons of so circumspect a piety have been These we should judge to be most miserable, thus overtaken, what security can there be for but that a wretcheder sort there are, on whom our wretchless oscitancy? Gav. of the Tongue. whereas nature bath bestowed ripę capacity, WRETCHLESSNESS. 1. s. [from wretchtheir evil disposition seriously goeth about therewith to apprehend God, as being not God. less.] - Carelessness. Hooker. The devil drives them into desperation, or into O cruel death! to those you are more kind wretchlessness of unclean living. Common Prayer. Than to the coretcheu mortals left behind. TO WRI’GGLE, W. n. (frigan, Saxon ; Waller. ruggelen, Dutch.] To move to and fro Why dost thou drive me with short motions. To range all o'er a waste and barren place, To find a friend? The wretcbed have no friends. If sheep or thy lamb fall a wriggling with tail, Dryden. Go by and by search it, whiles help may prevail. 2. Calamitous; afflictive. Tusser. The busy importunities of these extensional 3. Sorry; pitiful; paltry; worthless." phantasms I look upon as contemptuously, as When God was served with legal sacrifices, upon the quick wrigglings up and down of pissuch was the miserable and uTetched condition mires. More. of some men's minds, that the best of every The excellency of sawing is to keep in the thing they had being culled out for themselves, line marked to be sawn, without wriggling on if there were in their flocks any poor, starved, either side. Moxon. or diseased thing, not worth the keeping, they To bed went the bridegroom and the bride: thought it good enough for the altar of God. Was never such an ill-pair'd couple tied; Restless he toss'd, and tumbled to and fro, Affected noise is the most wretched thing And rolld and wriggled farther off for woe. That to contempt can empty scribblers bring. Roscommon. Dryder. How wildly will ambition steer! Forgive the many failings of those who, with A vermin wriggling in th’usurper's ear. Drydee. their wretched art, cannot arrive to those heighis And both he and his successors would often that you possess. Dryden. wriggle in their seats as long as the cushion last4. Despicable; hatefully contemptible. ed. Swift. An adventure worthy to be remembered for the unused examples therein, as well of true na TO WRIGGLE. v. 2. To put in a quick tural goodness as of wretched ungratefulness. reciprocating motion; to introduce by Sidney. shifting motion. WREʼTCHEDLÝ. adv. [from wretched. I Ralpho was mounted now, and gotten 1. Miserably; unhappily. O’erthwart his beast with active vaulting, From these two wars, so wretchedly entered Wriggling his body to recover into, the duke's ruin took its date. Clarendon. His seat, and cast his right leg over. Hudibras. 2. Meanly; despicably. A slimn thin-gutted fox made a hard shift 10 When such lictle shuffling arts come once to wriggle his body into a hen-roost. L'Estrange. be ripped up, and laid open, how poorly and WRIGGLETAIL. n.s. For wrigglingtail. wretchedly must that man sneak, who finds hinn See WRIGGLE.' seit guilty and baffled too. South. WRE'TCHEDNESS. n. 5. (from wretched.] My ragged ronts all shiver and shake: They wont in the wind wagg their wriggletails, 1. Misery; unhappiness; afflicted state. Peark as a peacoke, but nousunt it avails. Spens. My misery cannot be greater than it is: fear not the dawer of my blind steps, I cannot fall WRIGHT. n. s. [prihta, pynlita, Saxon.] worse than I am; and do not obstinately conti A workman; an artificer; a maker ; a que to infect thee sith my wrotebedness. Sidney. manufacturer. 9. Nor:place the neighbour Cyclops their delights 8. To distort; to turn to a wrong pur. á In brave vermilion prow deckt ships; nor pose. wrights Useful and skilful. Chapman. To wring this sentence, to wrest thereby out of men's hands the knowledge of God's doctrine, It is impossible duly to consider these things, is without all reason. Astur. without being rapt into admiration of the intia Lord, how dare these men thus wring the nite wisdom of the Divine Architect, and con scriptures? W bitgift. temning the arrogant pretences of the world and animal wrights, and much more the productions To persecute with extortion. of chance. Cheyne. The merchant-adventurers have been often The verb To write has the same sound with wronged and wringed to the quick; but were wright, a workman; right, or equity; and rite, never quick and lively in thanks to those by or ceremony; but spelled very differently. whose endeavours they were freed. Haynerd. Watts. TO WRING. v.n. To writhe with anguish. TO WRING. v. a. preter. and part. pass. 'Tis all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow; wringed and wrung. [pringar, Saxon.] But no man's virtue nor sufficiency s. To twist; to turn round with vio. To be so moral, when he shall endure lence. The like himself. Sbakspeare. The priest shall wring off his head, and burn WRINGER. n. s. (from wring.] 'One it on the altar. Leviticus. who squeezes the water out of clothes. 2. To force by contortion : with a parti One Mrs. Quickly is in the manner of his cle, as out. nurse, his laundress, his washer, and his springer. He thrust the fleece together, and wringed the Sbakspeare. dew out of it, a bowl full of water. Judges . WRI'NKL.E. n. s. (frucle, Sax. wrinkel, The figure of a sturdy woman, done bv Mi Dutch.] chael Angelo, washing and winding of linen clothes; in which act she wrings out the water 1. Corrugation or furrow of the skin or that made the fountain. Wotton. the face. Apply mild detergents on pledgets of lint over Give me that glass, and therein will I read: it, with a compress wrung out. Wiseman. No deeper wrinkles yet! Hath sorrow struck 3. To squeeze; to press. So many blows upon this face of mine, Sbakspeare. She hath continued a virgin without ant visz. Let us be wary, let us hide our loves ! Hood. ble token, or least wrinkle, of old age. And then, sir, would he gripe and caring my hand. Sbaispeare. To see a beggar's brat in riches flow, Adds not a wrinkle to my even brow. Dryd. 4. To writhe. Though you, and all your senseless tribe, Could art, or time, or nature bribe, To make you look like beauty's queen, And hold for ever at fitteen; 3. To pinch No bloom of youth can ever blind The king began to find where his shoe did The cracks and wrinkles of your mind; wring him, and that it was his depressing the All men of sense will pass your door, house of York that did rankle and fester the af. And crowd to Stella's at fourscore. Script fections of his people. Bacon. 2. Rumple of cloth. wrung by an uneasy and streiche fortune, he 3. Any roughness. Our British heaven was all serene; would have been an excellent man of business. Clarendon. No threatening cloud was nigh, Not the least wrinkle to deform the sky. Drys. 6. To force by violence; to extort. To Wri':KLE. v. a. (princlian, Saxon.) I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring 1. To corrugate ; to contract into fuse From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash It is still fortune's use Shukspeare. By any indirection. Who can be bound by any solemn vow : To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, To wring the widow from her custom'd right, To view with hollow eye and wrinkled bros And have no other reason for his wrong, An age of poverty. Stadspeare. But that he was bound by a solemu oath? Scorn makes us uprinkle up the nose, and Slukspeare. stretch the nostriis also, at the same time drar. That which I must speak ing up the upper lip. Here stcams ascend, Sbakspeare. That in mixt fumes the wrinkled nose offend. Her wrinkled form in black and white arra; d. 7. To harass ? to distress; to torture. 2. To make rough or uneven. A keen north wind, blowing dry, The joint WRIST. n. s. (rynfr, Sax.) Shakspeare. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard. Pleasure enchants, impetuous rage transports, Sbaispeare. And grief dejects and wrings the tortur'd soul. The brawn of the arm must appear full, sha. Roscommon. dowed on one side; then shew the corist-boos Didst thou taste but half the griets thereof. Peaches. That wring my soul, thou couldst not talk thus The axillary artery, below the cubit, divideth coldly. Addison. unto two parts; the one running along the re rows. Pept Milton. I ters dius, and passing by the wrist, or place of the David wrote a letter. 2 Samuel pulse, is at the fingers subdivided unto three The time, the place, the manner how to meet, branches. Brown. Were all in punctual order plainly writ. Dryd. WRISTBAND. n.s. (wrist and band.] 2. To engrave; to impress. The fastening of the shirt at the hand. Cain was so fully convinced that every one Writ, n. s. (from write.) had a right to destroy such a criininal, that he 1. Any thing written ; scripture. This cries out, every one that findeth me shall slay sense is now chieily used in speaking of me; so plain was it writ in the hearts of all mankind Locke, the Bible. 3. To produce, as an acthor. Hooker. To write the pretty things that you admire. Granville Live she for ever, and her royal places Be tillid with praises of divinese wits, 4. To tell by letter. I chose to write the thing I durst not speak: That her eternize with their heavenly writs. To her I lov’d. Prior, Spenser. Bagdat rises out of the ruins of the old city of To Write. v. n. Babylon, so much spoken of in holy writ. 1. To perform the act of writing. Knollis. I have seen her rise from her bed, take forth Others famous after known, paper, fold it, and write uson't. Shaksp. Although in holy writ not nam'd. Parad. Reg. Bassanio gave his ring away. He cannot keep his fingers from meduling Unto the judge that begg'd it; and his clerk, with holy writ. More. That took some pains in writing, he begg'd Sacred writ our reason does exceed. Waller. mine. Sbakspeare. His story, fili'd with so many surprising inci- 2. To play the autlior. dents, bears so close an analogy with what is de- Hearts, congues, figures, scribes, bards, poets, livered in boly writ, that it is capable of pleasing cannot the most delicate reader, without giving ofience Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number to the most scrupulous. Spectator. His love to Antony. Sbaksp. Cf ancient writ unlocks the learned store, There is not a more melancholy object in the Consults ihe dead, and lives past ages o'er. learned world, than a man who has written himPope. self down. Addison. 2. A judicial process, by which any one 3. To teil in books. is slien moned as an offender. I past the melancholy flood, Hold up your head, hold up your hand: With that grim ferryman which poets write of. Would it were not my lot to shew ye Sbakspeare. This cruel writ, wherein 4. To send letters. Indicted by the name of Chloe. Prior. He wrote for all the Jews concerning their 3. A legal instrument. freedom. 1 Esdras. The king is fled to London, s. To call one's self; to be entitled ; to To call a present court of parliament : use the style of. Let us pursue him, ere the urits go forth. About it, and write happy when thou'st dong. Sbakspeare. Shakspeant. I folded the writ up in form of th' other, Let it not your wonder move, Subscrib'd it, gave the impression, placed it Less your laughter, that I love; safely, Though I now write fifty years, The changeling never known. Shakspeare. I have had, and have, my peers. Ben Jonsont. For every writ of entry, whereupon a com- Those who begun to 'murite themselves men, mon recovery is to be suffered, the queen's tine but thought it no shame to learn. Fell. is to be rated upon the writ original, if the lands He writes himself divind providentia, whereas comprised therein be held. Azlife. other bishops use only diviná permissione. Writ. The preterit of write. Ayliffe. When Sappho writ, By their applause the criticks shew'd their wit, 6. To compose ; to form compositions. Chaste moral writing we may learn from Prior. hence, WRITATIVE. A word of Pope's coining, Neglect of which no wit can recompence;, not to be imitated. The fount:in which frojn Helicon proceeds, Increase of years inakes men more talkative, That sacred stream, should never water weeds. but less writatise; to that degree, that I now Waller. write no letters but of plain how d’ye's. They can write up to the dignity and charac Pope to Swift. ter of the authors. Felton. TO WRITE. v.a. preterit writ or wrote; WRITER. n. s. [from write. ] participle passive written, writ, or wrote. 1. One who practises the art of writing.. [pritan, apritan, Saxon; ad rita, Islan 2. An author.. dick; wreta, a letter, Gothick.] All three were ruined hy justice and sentence, 1. To express by means of letters. as delinquents; and all three famous writers. you Bacon. The which shall point you forth, at every sitting, Peaceable times are the best to live in, though What you must say. Sbakspeare. not so proper to furnish materials for a writer. Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues Addison, we write in water. Sbakspeare: Writers are often more influenced by a desire When a man hath taken a wife, and she hnd of fame, than a regard to the public good. no favour in his eyes, then let him write her a Addison. bill of divorcement. Deuteronimy. Would a writer know how to behave himself VOL. IV, you stand 1 who wring with relation to posterity, let him consider in , thoughts: written language is a descriptico of old books what he finds that he is glad to know, the said audible signs by signs visible. Helder. and what omissions he most laments. Swift. WRO'KEN. The part. pass. of To wreak. TO WRITHE. v. a. (pridan, Saxon.] Spenser. 1. To distort; to deform with distortion. WRONG. n.s. (pranze, Saxon.] It cannot be this weak and writbed shrimp 1. An injury; a designed or known deShould strike such terror in his enemies. Sbalspeare. triment; not right; not justice. Hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws It is a harm, and no wrong, which he hath received. Sider With soot and cinders. Milton. Her mouth she writb'd, her forehead taught She resolved to spend :!! her years, which her to frown, youth promised should be many, in bewailing Her eyes to sparkle fires to love unknown; the wrong, and yet praying for the wrongdoer. Joser. Her sallow cheeks her envious mind did shew, And ev'ry feature spoke aloud the curstness of If he may net commard them, then that las a shrew. Dryden. Spenser. to be justitied. 2. To twist with violence. They ever do fretend To have receiv'd a wrong, intend. And writh'd him to and fro convolv'd. Milion. Donid. Amid the plaited scales it took its course, And in the spinal marrow spent its force; One spake much of right and wrorg: Afilter. Imitation of an author is the most advartageThe monster hiss'd aloud, and rag'd in vain, And writh'd his body to and fro with pain; ous way for a translator to shew himself, but He bit the dart. the greatest Teror which can be done to the Addison. reputation of the dead, Dryden. 3. To wrest; to force by violence; to Cowley preferred a garden and a friend to torture; to distort. those whom, in our own wresg, we call the The reason which he yieldeth, sheveth the great. Drydes. least part of his meaning to be that whe: eunto Expecting more in my own wrong, his words are writbed. Hooker. Protracting lite, I 've liv’d a day too long. 4 To twist. Doda. The king of heav'n In the judgment of right and arers, every Hattı. man has a self. Dryden. The multitude is always in the areng. Reces, TO WRITHE. vin. To be convolved with Here was wrong on buth sides; and what would follow but confussion? Lustg. agony or torture. 'Let each be broken on the rack; Proceed; quoth Dick. sir, 1 zver Then, with what life remains, impal'd, and left You have already gone fou ta'; When peaple once are in the wrong, Each line they add is much to long: Who fastest valks, but walks astray, Prist. wrinkle; to corrugate. Is only farthest from his way. Wrong: adj. [from the noun.] 1. Not morally right; not just ; not mankind. Spenser. agreeable to propriety or truth; Dot WRITING. n. s. [from writ.] true. 1. A legal instrument; as, the writings of I firid you are an invincible Amazon, since you will overcome, though in a areng matter. al estate, Sisey. Gentlemen keep writings in their closets, la- If it be right to comply with the wrong, then it dies medicines. Selier. is wrong to comply with the right. Lesley. 2. A composure; a book. When the dictaics of honour are contrary to They thought no other writings in the world those of religion and equity, they give erreg; should be studied; insomuch as, one of their ambitious, and false ideas of what good and great prophets exhorting them to cast away all Jaudable. Spectater. respects into human writings, to his motion Their hearts are constantly employed, per. they condescended. Hooker, verted, and kept in a wrong state, by the indisSuch arguments had an invincible force with creet use of such things as are lasful to be used. those pagan philosophers who became christians, Lam. as we find in most of their writings. Addison. 2. Not physically right; unfit; unsuit3. A written paper of any kind. able. Of Gloster's treachery, And of the loval service of his son, When I inform'd him, then he called me sot, WRITINGMASTER. One who Sbakspeare. We never think of the main business of life, bold strokes, it it makes not a great effect at a till a vain repentance minds us of it at the sering end, L'Estrange. distance: that sort of freedom belongs rather to a writing-master than a painter. Dividing a living of five hundred pounds a year Dryder. into ten parts, is a contrivance, the meaning Written. The part. pass. of write. whercot hath got on the wrong side of my comTheir doctrine and their story written left, prehension. Saif They die. Milton, Singularity shews something wrong in the mind. Language is a connexion of audible signs, the Clarissa. best ape in nature to communication of our 3. Acting improperly. n. S. a |