Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LEAN'ING, ppr.

Inclining; causing to lean.

LEAN'LY, adv.

Meagerly; without fat or plumpness.

LEAN'NESS, n.

1. Destitution of fat; want of flesh; thinness of body; meagerness; applied to animals.
2. Want of matter; poverty; emptiness; as, the leanness of a purse. – Shak.
3. In Scripture, want of grace and spiritual comfort. He sent leanness into their soul. Ps. cvi.

LEAN'-TO, n.

A part of a building which appears to lean on the main building.

LEAN'Y, a.

Alert; brisk; active. [Not in use.] – Spenser.

LEAP, n.

1. A jump; a spring; a bound; act of leaping.
2. Space passed by leaping.
3. A sudden transition or passing. – Swift.
4. The space that may be passed at a bound. 'Tis the convenient leap I mean to try. – Dryden.
5. Embrace of animals. – Dryden.
6. Hazard, or effect of leaping. – Musk.
7. A basket; a weel for fish. [Not in use.] – Wicliffe.

LEAP, v.i. [Sax. hleapan, Goth. hlaupan, to leap; G. laufen; D. loopen, Sw. löpa, Dan. löber, to run, to pass rapidly, to flow, slip or glide; W. llwf, a leap. From these significations, it may be inferred that this word belongs to the family of L. labor, perhaps Heb. Ch. Syr. Sam. Eth. תלף. Class Lb, No. 30. Qu. L. lupus, a wolf, the leaper.]

1. To spring or rise from the ground with both feet, as a man, or with all the feet, as other animals; to jump; to vault; as, a man leaps over a fence, or leaps upon a horse. A man leapeth better with weights in his hands than without. – Bacon.
2. To spring or move suddenly; as, to leap from a horse.
3. To rush with violence. And the men in whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them and overcame them. – Acts xix.
4. To spring; to bound to skip; as, to leap for joy.
5. To fly; to start. – Job ii. He parted frowning from me, as if ruin / Leaped from his eyes. – Shak. [Our common people retain the Saxon aspirate of this word in the phrase, to clip it, to run fast.]

LEAP, v.i.

1. To pass over by leaping; to spring or bound from one side to the other; as, to hap a all, a gate or a gulf; to leap a stream. [But the phrase is elliptical, and over is understood.]
2. To compress; as the male of certain beasts. – Dryden,

LEAP'ED, pp.

Passed over by a bound.

LEAP'ER, n.

One that leaps. A horse is called a good leaper.

LEAP'-FROG, n.

A play of children, in which they imitate the leap of frogs. – Shak.

LEAP'ING, ppr.

Jumping; springing; bounding; skipping.

LEAP'ING-LY, adv.

By leaps.

LEAP'-YEAR, n.

Bissextile, a year containing 366 days; every fourth year, which leaps over a day more than in common year. Thus in common years, if the first day of March is on Monday, the present year, it will, the next year, fall on Tuesday, but in leap-year it will leap to Wednesday; for leap-year contains a day more than n common year, a day being added to the month of February. – Brown.

LEARN, v.i. [Lern.]

1. To gain or receive knowledge; to receive instruction; to take pattern; with of. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly. – Matth. xi.
2. To receive information or intelligence.

LEARN, v.t. [lern; Sax. leornian; G. lernen; D. leeren; Dan. lærer; Sw. lära. The latter coincides with the Sax. læran, to teach, the same word having both significations, to teach and to learn. In popular use, learn still has both senses.]

1. To gain knowledge of; to acquire knowledge or ideas of something before unknown. We learn the use of letters, the meaning of words and the principles of science. We learn things by instruction, by study, and by experience and observation. It is much easier to learn what is right, than to unlearn what is wrong. Now learn a parable of the fig tree. – Matth. xxiv.
2. To acquire skill in any thing; to gain by practice a faculty of performing; as, to learn to play on a flute or an organ. The chief art of learning is to attempt but little at a time. – Locke.
3. To teach; to communicate the knowledge of something before unknown. Hast thou not learned me how / To make perfumes. – Shak. [This use of learn is found in respectable writers, but is now deemed inelegant as well as improper.]

LEARN'ED, a. [lern'ed.]

1. Versed in literature and science as, a learned man.
2. Skillful; well acquainted with arts; knowing; with in as, learned in martial arts.
3. Containing learning; as, a learned treatise or publication. – Coxe.
4. Versed in scholastic, as distinct from other knowledge. Men of much reading are greatly learned, but may be little knowing. – Locke. The learned, learned men; men of erudition; literati.

LEARN'ED, or LEARNT, pp. [lern'ed, lernt.]

Obtained as knowledge or information.

LEARN'ED-LY, adv. [lern'edly.]

With learning or erudition; with skill; as, to discuss a question learnedly. Every coxcomb swears as learnedly as they. – Swift.

LEARN'ED-NESS, n. [lern'edness.]

A state of being learned. – Abp. Laud.

LEARN'ER, n. [lern'er.]

A person who is gaining knowledge from instruction, from reading or study, or by other means one who is in the rudiments of any science or art.

LEARN'ING, n. [lern'ing.]

1. The knowledge of principles or facts received by instruction or study; acquired knowledge or ideas in any branch of science or literature; erudition literature; science. The Scaligers were men of great learning. [This is the proper tense of the word.]
2. Knowledge acquired by experience, experiment or observation.
3. Skill in any thing good or bad. – Hooker.

LEARN'ING, ppr. [lern'ing.]

Gaining knowledge by instruction or reading, by study, by experience or observation; acquiring skill by practice.

LEAS'A-BLE, a.

That may be leased. – Sherwood.

LEASE, n. [Fr. laisser. See the Verb.]

1. A demise or letting of lands, tenements or hereditaments to another for life, for a term of years, or at will, for a man or compensation reserved; also, the contract for such leasing. – Encyc.
2. Any tenure by grant or permission. Our high placed Macbeth / Shall live the lease of nature. – Shak.