Emily Dickinson Lexicon

HEC'TARE, n. [Gr. εκατον, a hundred, and L. area.]

A French measure containing a hundred ares, or ten thousand square meters. Lunier.

HEC'TIC, or HEC'TIC-AL, a. [Gr. εκτικος, from εξις, habit of body, from εχω, to have.]

1. Habitual; pertaining to hectic.
2. Affected with hectic fevers; as, a hectic patient. No hectic student scares the gentle maid. Taylor.

HEC'TIC, n.

An exacerbating and remitting fever, with stages of chilliness, heat and sweat, variously intermixed; exacerbation chiefly in the evening; the sweats mostly in the night; pulse weak; urine with a natant furfuraceous cloud.

HEC'TIC-AL-LY, adv.

Constitutionally. Johnson.

HEC'TO-GRAM, n. [Gr. εκατον, a hundred, and γραμμα, a gram]

In the French system of weights and measures, a weight containing a hundred grams; equal to 3 ounces, 2 gros, and 12 grains, French. Lunier.

HEC-TOL'I-TER, n. [Gr. εκατον, a hundred, and λιτρα, a pound.]

A French measure of capacity for liquids, containing a hundred liters; equal to a tenth of a cubic meter, or 107 Paris pints. As a dry measure, it is called a setier, and contains 10 decaliters or bushels [boisseaux]. Lunier.

HEC-TOM'E-TER, n. [Gr. ἑκατον, a hundred, and μετρον, measure.]

A French measure equal to a hundred meters; the meter being the unit of lineal measure. It is equivalent nearly to 308 French feet. Lunier.

HEC'TOR, n. [from Hector, the son of Priam, a brave Trojan warrior.]

1. A bully; a blustering, turbulent, noisy fellow.
2. One who teases or vexes.

HEC'TOR, v.i.

To play the bully; to bluster; to be turbulent or insolent. Swift.

HEC'TOR, v.t.

1. To threaten; to bully; to treat with insolence. Dryden.
2. To tease; to vex; to torment by words.

HEC'TOR-ED, pp.

Bullied; teased.

HEC'TOR-ING, ppr.

Bullying; blustering; vexing. [“The epithet of a hectoring fellow is a more familiar instance of a participle similarly formed, though strangely distorted in its use to express a meaning almost the opposite of its original. The Hector of Homer unites, we know, 'The mildest manners with the bravest mind.' The sole bulwark of Troy, he reveres the opinion of her citizens; armed and hastening to the battle, he stops to caress his infant, and to soothe the afflictions of its mother; to his brother's faults he is indulgent; and Helen herself witnesses over his grave that she had never heard from him one accent of unkindness, or ceased to be protected from the reproach of others by his mild speech and kindly dispositions: Σῆ τ' αγανοφροσύνη, καὶ σοῖς' αγανοῖς ἐπἑεσσι.” Nugæ Metricæ, an unpublished work by Lord Grenville, 1824, p. 86. – E. H. B.]

HEC'TOR-ISM, n.

The disposition or practice of a hector; a bullying. Ch. Relig. Appeal.

HEC'TOR-LY, a.

Blustering; insolent. Barrow.

HED-EN-BERG'ITE, n. [from Hedenberg, who first analyzed it.]

A mineral, or ore of iron, in masses, composed of shining plates, which break into rhombic fragments; found at Tunaberg, in Sweden. Cleaveland.

HED-ER-A'CEOUS, a. [L. hederaceus, from hedera, ivy; W. eizaw, ivy, from holding, clinging; eiziaw, to possess. See Heath.]

1. Pertaining to ivy.
2. Producing ivy.

HED'ER-AL, a.

Composed of ivy; belonging to ivy: Bailey.

HED-E-RIF'ER-OUS, a. [L. hedera, ivy, and fero, to bear.]

Producing ivy.

HEDGE, n. [hej; Sax. hege, heag, hæg, hegge; G. heck; D. heg, haag; Dan. hekke or hek; Sw. hägn, hedge, protection; Fr. haie; W. cae. Hence Eng. haw, and Hague in Holland. Ar. حَاُج haugan, a species of thorny plant.]

Properly, a thicket of thorn-bushes or other shrubs or small trees; but appropriately, such a thicket planted round a field to fence it, or in rows, to separate the parts of a garden. Hedge, prefixed to another word, or in composition, denotes something mean, as a hedge-priest, a hedge-press, a hedge-vicar, that is, born in or belonging to the hedges or woods, low, outlandish. [Not used in America.]

HEDGE, v.i. [hej.]

To hide, as in a hedge; to hide; to skulk. Shak.

HEDGE, v.t. [hej.]

1. To inclose with a hedge; to fence with a thicket of shrubs or small trees; to separate by a hedge; as, to hedge a field or garden.
2. To obstruct with a hedge, or to obstruct in any manner. I will hedge up thy way with thorns. Hos. ii.
3. To surround for defense; to fortify. England hedged in with the main. Shak.
4. To inclose for preventing escape. That is a law to hedge in the cuckow. Locke. Dryden, Swift and Shakspeare have written hedge for edge, to edge in, but improperly.

HEDGE'-BILL, or HEDG'ING-BILL, n.

A cutting hook used in dressing hedges.

HEDGE'-BORN, a.

Of low birth, as if born in the woods; outlandish; obscure. Shak.

HEDGE'-BOTE, n.

Wood for repairing hedges. Blackstone.

HEDGE'-CREEP-ER, n.

One who skulks under hedges for bad purposes.