will throw the shuttle and perform the other operations at the rate of 120 times per minute. (Gregory's Dictionary).

LOOM (Indian). The Indian loom consists merely of two bamboo-rollers, one for the warp, and the other for the web, and a pair of geer; the shuttle performs the double office of shuttle and batton, and for this purpose is made like a large netting needle, and of a length somewhat exceeding the breadth of the piece.

This apparatus the weaver carries to whatever tree affords a shade most grateful to him, under which he digs a hole large enough to contain his legs, and the lower part of the geer; he then stretches his warp by fastening his bamboo rollers at a due distance from each other on the turf by wooden pins; the balances of the geer he fastens to some convenient branch of the tree over his head; two loops underneath the geer in which he inserts his great toes, serve instead of treadles; and his long shuttle, which performs also the office of a batton, draws the weft, throws the warp, and afterwards strikes it up close to the web: in such looms as this are made those admirable muslins whose delicate texture the European could never equal with all his complicated machinery.

LOOM, in the sea language. When a ship appears big when seen at a distance, they say she looms.

LOOM-GALE, a gentle easy gale of wind, in which a ship can carry her topsails atrip. LOOM (Heir). See HEIRLOOM.

LOON. 8. A lown; a sorry fellow; a scoundrel: a rascal (Dryden).

LOOP. 8. (from loopen, Dutch.) A double through which a string or lace is drawn; an ornamental double or fringe (Spenser).

LOOP, in the iron works, denotes a part of a sow or block of cast iron, broken or melted off from the rest.

LO'OPED. a. (from loop.) Full of holes (Shakspeare).

Full

LOOPHOLE. 8. (loop and hole.) 1. Aperture; hole to give a passage (Milton). 2. A shift; an evasion (Dryden). LOOPHOLED. a. (from loophole.) of holes; full of openings (Hudibras). LOORD. s. (loord, Dutch.) (Spenser).

A drone

To LOOSE. v. a. (leɲan, Saxon.) 1. To unbind; to untie any thing fastened. 2. To relax (Daniel). 3. To unbind any one bound (Luke). 4. To free from imprisonment (Isa.). 5. To free from any obligation (Corinthians). 6. To free from any thing that shackles the mind (Dryden). 7. To free from any thing painful (Luke). 8. To disengage (Dryden).

To LOOSE. v. n. To set sail; to depart by loosing the anchor (Acts).

LOOSE. a. (from the verb.) 1. Unbound; antied (Shakspeare). 2. Not fast; not fixed (Beatley). 3. Not tight: as, a loose robe. 4. Not crowded; not close (Milton). 5. Wanton; not chaste (Spenser). 6. Not close; not concise; lax (Felton). 7. Vague; indeterminate (Arbuth.). 8. Not strict; not rigid (Hooker). 9. Unconnected; rambling (Watts). 10. Lax

of body; not costive (Locke). 11. Disengaged; not enslaved (Atterbury). 12. Disengaged from obligation (Addison). 13. Free from confinement (Prior). 14. Remiss; not attentive. 15. To break Loose. To gain liberty (Locke).

16. To let Loose. To set at liberty; to set at large; to free from any restraint (Taylor).

Loose. s. (from the verb.) 1. Liberty; freedom from restraint (Prior). 2. Dismission from any restraining force (Bacon).

LOOSE-JOINTED, in the manage, a term applied to horses whose pasterns are so long as to let the hoof come considerably from under the perpendicular position of the fore leg, so that the heel is exceedingly flat, and the hinder part of the fetlock joint, by a kind of elastic bend or drop, seems nearly to touch the ground. Horses of the blood kind have frequently this defect; many of which have at the same time the additional defect of a long back, and consequently great weakness of the loins; these in the ag gregate constitute a completely loose-jointed horse.

LOOSE-STRIFE, in botany. See ANAGALLIS, LYTHRUM, GAWA, &c.

LO'OSELY. ad. (from loose.) 1. Not fast; not firmly (Dry.). 2. Without bandage (Sp.). 3. Without union or connexion (Norris). 4. Irregularity (Camden). 5. Negligently; carelessly (Hooker). 6. Unsolidly; meanly; without dignity (Sh.). 7. Unchastely (Pope).

To LOOSEN. v. n. (from loose). ́ Í. To part; to tend to separation (Sharp).

1. To

To Lo'oSEN. v. a. (from loose.) relax any thing tied. 2. To make less coherent (Ba.). 3. To separate a compages (Milton). 4. To free from restraint (Dryden). 5. To make not costive (Bacon).

LO'OSENESS. s. (from loose.) I. State contrary to that of being fast or fixed (Ba.). 2. Latitude; criminal levity (Atterb.). 3. Irregularity; neglect of laws (Hayward). 4. Lewdness; unchastity (Spenser). 5. Diarrhea; flux of the belly (Arbuthnot).

To LOP. v. a. (from laube, Germ. a leaf.) 1. To cut the branches of trees (Shak.). 2. To cut any thing (Howel).

LOP. 8. (from the verb.) 1. That which is cut from trees (Mortimer). 2. (loppa, Swed.) A flea.

LOPE. The old pret. of leap (Spenser). LOPE/RIA, in botany, a genus of the class monandria, order monogynia. Calyx four-leav ed, corol five-petalled, unequal; capsule fourcelled, four-valved, many-seeded: one species; an herbaceous plant of Mexico, with racemed flowers.

na.

LOPEZ LE VEGA. See VEGA.

LOPEZ RADIX. Lopez root. Radix lopezia

Radix indica lopeziana. The root of an unknown tree, growing, according to some, at Goa. It is met with in pieces of different thickness, some at least of two inches diameter. The woody part is whitish, and very light; softer, more spongy, and whiter next the bark, including a denser, somewhat reddish, medulJary part. The bark is rough, wrinkled, brown, soft, and, as it were, woolly, pretty thick, co

vered with a thin paler cuticle. Neither the woody nor cortical part has any remarkable smell or taste, nor any appearance of resinous matter. It appears that this medicine has been remarkably effectual in stopping colliquative diarrhoeas which had resisted the usual remedies. Those attending the last stage of consumptions were particularly relieved by its use. It seemed to act, not by an astringent power, but by a faculty of restraining and appeasing spasniodic and inordinate motions of the intestimes. Dr. Ganbins, who gives this account, compares its action to that of fimarouba, but thinks it more efficacious than this medicine. LOPHIUS, in zoology, a genus of the class pisces, order branchi ortegons. Head compress ed, downwards; teeth sharp, numerons; tongue broad, armed with teeth; eyes vertical, nostrils small; gills three, the aperture lateral, simple; pectoral fins broad, thick, and more or less resembling feet; dorsal and anal opposite and near the tail; body naked, covered with a thin loose skin; vent in the middle of the body; without lateral line. Eight species: scattered principally through the Northern, South American, and Australasian seas: one found on our own coasts. The following are chiefly entitled to notice:

1. L. piscatorius. Fishing-frog; Angler; Frog-fish. Body depressed; head rounded, much larger than the body: iris radiate with white and brown; before the eyes a horny bristle; teeth long, rounded, bent inwards, those in the upper jaw in three rows, those in the lower jaw, which is longer, rounded, in a double row, the hind ones very large and moveable inwards; tongue broad, thick, short; palate and bones of the throat toothed; ventral fins short, rigid, palmate, white; tail black, the other fins brown; pectoral white beneath, edged with black. Inhabits most European seas; grows to seven feet long; lurks behind sand-hills or heaps of stones,and throwing over the slender appendages on its head resembling worms entices little fishes to play round them, fill they come within its reach, when they are instantly devoured: is very sluggish, and swins with great difficulty.

2. L. monopterigius, Body depressed; blackish, beneath whitish: fin above the tail suberect, ramous. Inhabits the seas of AustraJasia. This very singular fish Dr. Shaw is doubtful where to place. It has no fin except the lobate one just above the tail: the eyes are vertical, approximate, and far behind the snout; the body roundish, a little tapering to both ends, and the tail or lobe at the end of the body rounded.

LO'PPER. s. (from lop.) One that cuts

trees,

LO'PPERED. a. Coagulated: as, loppered milk (Ainsworth).

LOQUACIOUS. a. (loquax, Latin.) 1. Full of talk; full of tongue (Milton). 2. Speaking (Philips). 3. Blabbing; not secret.

LOQUACITY. 8. (loquacitas, Lat.) Too much talk (Ray).

LORANTHUS, in botany, a genus of the shexandria, order monogynia, Germ infe

rior; calyxless; corol six-cleft, revolute; stamens placed on the tips of the petals: berry one-seeded. Twenty-seven species: natives of the East or West Indies, or South America; chiefly shrubs or shrubby.

LORD. 8. (hlapond, Saxon.) 1. Monarch; ruler; governour (Milton). 2 Master; supreme person (Shakspeare). 3. A tyrant; an oppres sive ruler (Hayward). 4. A husband (Pope). 5. One who is at the head of any business; an overseer (Tusser). 6. A nobleman (Shaksp.). 7. A general name for a peer of England. 8. A baron. 9. An honorary title applied to officers: as, lord chief justice, lord mayor. To LORD. v. n. To domineer; to rule despotically (Spenser, Philips).

LORD, a title of honour given to those who are noble either by birth or creation. In this sense, it amounts to much the same as peer of the realm, or lord of parliament. The title is by courtesy also given to all the sons of dukes and marquises, and to the eldest sons of earls: and it is also a title of honour bestowed on those who are honourable by their employments; as, lord advocate, lord chamberlain, lord chancel lor, &c. The word is Saxon, but abbreviated from two syllables into one: for it was originally Illaford, which by dropping the aspiration became Laford, and afterwards by contraction Lord. "The etymology of the word (says J. Coates) is well worth observing; for it was composed of illaf, a loaf of bread, and ford, to give or afford; so that Illaford, now Lord, implies a giver of bread, because, in those ages, such great men kept extraordinary honses, and fed all the poor; for which reason they were called givers of bread, a thing now much out of date, great men being fond of retaining the title, but few regarding the practice for which it was first given." See LADY.

LORDS (House of), one of the three estates of parliament, and composed of the lords spiritual and temporal.

1. The spiritual lords consist of two archbishops and 24 bishops; and at the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII. consisted likewise of 26 mitred abbots and two priors: a very considerable body, and in those times equal in number to the temporal nobility. All these hold, or are supposed to hold, certain ancient baronies under the king: for William the Conqueror thought proper to change the spiritual tenure of frank-almoign or free-alms, inder which the bishops held their lands during the Saxon government, into the feodal or Nornian tenure by barony; which subjected their estates to all civil charges and assessments, from which they were before exempt; and in right of succession to those baronies, which were unalienable from their respective dignities, the bishops and abbots were allowed their seats in the house of lords. But though these lords spiritual are in the eye of the law a distinct estate from the lords temporal, and are so distinguished in most of our acts of parliament; yet in practice they are usually blended together under the name of the lords; they intermix in their votes, and the majority of such intermixture joins both estates. And from this