Emily Dickinson Lexicon

FAITH'FUL, a.

1. Firm in adherence to the truth and to the duties of religion. Be thou faithful to death, and I will give thee a crown of life. Rev. ii.
2. Firmly adhering to duty; of true fidelity; loyal; true to allegiance; as, a faithful subject.
3. Constant in the performance of duties or services; exact in attending to commands; as, a faithful servant.
4. Observant of compact, treaties, contracts, vows or other engagements; true to one's word. A government should be faithful to its treaties; individuals, to their word.
5. True; exact; in conformity to the letter and spirit; as, a faithful execution of a will.
6. True to the marriage covenant; as, a faithful wife or husband.
7. Conformable to truth; as, a faithful narrative or representation.
8. Constant; not fickle; as, faithful lover or friend.
9. True; worthy of belief. 2 Tim. ii.

FAITH'FUL-LY, adv.

1. In a faithful manner; with good faith.
2. With strict adherence to allegiance and duty; applied to subjects.
3. With strict observance of promises, vows, covenants or duties; without failure of performance; honestly; exactly. The treaty or contract was faithfully executed.
4. Sincerely; with strong assurances; he faithfully promised.
5. Honestly; truly; without defect, fraud, trick or ambiguity. The battle was faithfully described or represented. They suppose the nature of things to be faithfully signified by their names. South.
6. Confidently; steadily. Shak.

FAITH'FUL-NESS, n.

1. Fidelity; loyalty; firm adherence to allegiance and duty; as, the faithfulness of a subject.
2. Truth; veracity; as, the faithfulness of God.
3. Strict adherence to injunctions, and to the duties of a station; as, the faithfulness of servants or ministers.
4. Strict performance of promises, vows or covenants; constancy in affection; as, the faithfulness of a husband or wife.

FAITH'LESS, a.

1. Without belief in the revealed truths of religion; unbelieving. O faithless generation. Matth. xvii.
2. Not believing; not giving credit to.
3. Not adhering to allegiance or duty; disloyal; perfidious; treacherous; as, a faithless subject.
4. Not true to a master or employer; neglectful; as, a faithless servant.
5. Not true to the marriage covenant; false; as, a faithless husband or wife.
6. Not observant of promises.
7. Deceptive. Yonder faithless phantom. Goldsmith.

FAITH'LESS-LY, adv.

In a faithless manner.

FAITH'LESS-NESS, n.

1. Unbelief, as to revealed religion.
2. Perfidy; treachery; disloyalty; as in subjects.
3. Violation of promises or covenants; inconstancy; as of husband or wife.

FAI'TOUR, n. [Norm. from L. factor.]

An evil doer; a scoundrel; a mean fellow. [Obs.] Spenser.

FAKE, n. [Scot. faik, to fold, a fold, a layer or stratum; perhaps Sw. vika, vickla, to fold or involve. The sense of fold may be to lay, to fall, or to set or throw together, and this word may belong to Sax. fægan, fegan, to unite, to suit, to fadge, that is, to set or lay together.]

One of the circles or windings of a cable or hawser, as it lies in a coil; a single turn or coil. Mar. Dict.

FA'KIR, or FA-QUIR, n. [This word signifies in Arabic a poor man; in Ethiopic, an interpreter.]

A monk in India. The fakirs subject themselves to severe austerities and mortification. Some of them condemn themselves to a standing posture all their lives, supported only by a stick or rope under their arm-pits. Some mangle their bodies with scourges or knives. Others wander about in companies, telling fortunes, and these are said to be arrant villains. Encyc.

FAL-CADE', n. [L. falx, a sickle or sythe.]

A horse is said to make a falcade, when he throws himself on his haunches two or three times, as in very quick curvets; that is, a falcade is a bending very low. Harris.

FALC'ATE, or FALC'A-TED, a. [L. falcatus, from falx, a sickle, sythe or reaping-hook.]

Hooked; bent like a sickle or sythe; an epithet applied to the new moon. Bailey.

FAL-CA'TION, n.

Crookedness; a bending in the form of a sickle. Brown.

FAL'CHION, n. [fal'chun; a is pronounced as in fall. Fr. fauchon, from L. falx, a reaping-hook.]

A short crooked sword; a cimiter. Dryden.

FAL'CI-FORM, a. [L. falx, a reaping-hook, and form.]

In the shape of a sickle; resembling a reaping-hook.

FAL'CON, n. [sometimes pronounced fawcon. Fr. faucon; It. falcone; L. falco, a hawk; W. gwalç, a crested one, a hero, a hawk, that which rises or towers. The falcon is probably so named from its curving beak or talons.]

1. A hawk; but appropriately, a hawk trained to sport, as in falconry, – which see. It is said that this name is, by sportsmen, given to the female alone; for the male is smaller, weaker and less courageous, and is therefore called tircelel or tarsel. Encyc. This term, in ornithology, is applied to a division of the genus Falco, with a short hooked beak and very long wings, the strongest armed and most courageous species, and therefore used in falconry. Cuvier. Ed. Encyc.
2. A sort of cannon, whose diameter at the bore is five inches and a quarter, and carrying shot of two pounds and a half. Harris

FAL'CON-ER, n. [Fr. fauconnier.]

A person who breeds and trains hawks for taking wild fowls; one who follows the sport of fowling with hawks. Johnson.

FAL'CO-NET, n. [Fr. falconette.]

A small cannon or piece of ordnance, whose diameter at the bore is four inches and a quarter, and carrying shot of one pound and a quarter. Harris.

FAL'CON-RY, n. [Fr. fauconnerie, from L. falco, a hawk.]

1. The art of training hawks to the exercise of hawking.
2. The practice of taking wild fowls by means of hawks.

FALD'AGE, n. [a as in all. W. fald, a fold; Goth. faldan; Sax. fealdan, to fold; Law L. faldagium.]

In England, a privilege which anciently several lords reserved to themselves of setting up folds for sheep, in any fields within their manors, the better to manure them. Harris.

FALD'FEE, n.

A fee or composition paid anciently by tenants for the privilege of faldage. Dict.

FALD'ING, n.

A kind of coarse cloth. [Obs.] Chaucer.

FALD'IS-DO-RY, n. [Sax. fald and stow. Ash.]

The throne or seat of a bishop. [Not in use.]

FALD'STOOL, n. [fald or fold and stool.]

1. A kind of stool placed at the south side of the altar, at which the kings of England kneel at their coronation. Johnson.
2. The chair of a bishop inclosed by the railing of the altar.
3. An arm-chair or folding chair. Ashmole.

FA-LER'NI-AN, a.

Pertaining to Falernus in Italy. As a noun, the wine made in that territory.

FALL, n.

1. The act of dropping or descending from a higher to a lower place by gravity; descent; as, a fall from a horse or from the yard of a ship.
2. The act of dropping or tumbling from an erect posture. He was walking on ice and had a fall.
3. Death; destruction; overthrow. Our fathers had a great fall before our enemies. Judith.
4. Ruin; destruction. They conspire thy fall. Denham.
5. Downfall; degradation; loss of greatness or office; as, the fall of cardinal Wolsey. Behold thee glorious only in thy fall. Pope.
6. Declension of greatness, power or dominion; ruin; as, the fall of the Roman empire.
7. Diminution; decrease of price or value; depreciation; as, the fall of prices; the fall of rents; the fall of interest.
8. Declination of sound; a sinking of tone; cadence; as, the fall of the voice at the close of a sentence.
9. Declivity; the descent of land or a hill; a slope. Bacon.
10. Descent of water; a cascade; a cataract; a rush of water down a steep place; usually in the plural; sometimes in the singular; as, the falls of Niagara, or the Mohawk; the fall of the Hoosatonuc at Canaan. Fall is applied to a perpendicular descent, or to one that is very steep. When the descent is moderate, we name it rapids. Custom however sometimes deviates from this rule, and the rapids of rivers are called falls.
11. The outlet or discharge of a river or current of water into the ocean, or into a lake or pond; as, the fall of the Po into the Gulf of Venice. Addison.
12. Extent of descent; the distance which any thing falls; as, the water of a pond has a fall of five feet.
13. The fall of the leaf; the season when leaves fall from trees; autumn.
14. That which falls; a falling; as, a fall of rain or snow.
15. The act of felling or cutting down; as, the fall of timber.
16. Fall, or the fall, by way of distinction, the apostasy; the act of our first parents in eating the forbidden fruit; also the apostasy of the rebellious angels.
17. Formerly, a kind of vale. B. Jonson.
18. In seamen's language, the loose end of a tackle. Mar. Dict.
19. In Great Britain, a term applied to several measures, linear, superficial and solid. Cyc.