The gentleman, who fondly imagined himself a bat, stood his ground like a regular built chicken, and "went in" a number of times; but his adversary, a stalwart butcher, was too much used to lam" to be vanquished, and his superior prowess was soon made manifest by the commercial gentleman's face. - New York Spirit of the Times.

Cooney would pitch into a private dispute, when he did n't care a durn cent which walloped the other, and lam them both. - Southern Sketches, p. 31.

If I had got a hold of him, I'd a lammed him worse than the devil beatin' tan bark, I know. - Sam Slick, Human Nature, p. 193.

LAMANTIN. See Manitee.

TO LAMBASTE. To beat, thresh, lam.

LAMBASTING. A beating.

LAMB-KILL. See Calf-kill.

LAMB'S QUARTER. The popular name of an herb (Chenopodium album) at the South.-Williams's Florida.

LAME DUCK. A stockjobber who has failed, or one unable to meet his engagements.

On the southern corner of the Exchange stand half a score of excited faces. These are the famous Third Board of Brokers - mostly lame ducks, who have been disabled for life in their passage through the more secret operations of the regular Board up stairs, and greenhorns who are very anxious to come in and be caught. — New York in Slices, Wall Street.

LAMMING. A beating.

LAND OFFICE. An office or place in which the sale and management of the public lands are conducted.-Worcester. These offices are all under the control of the General Land Office at Washington, which forms one of the bureaus of the Department of the Interior.

LAND SCRIP. A certificate or certificates that the purchase-money for a certain portion of land has been paid to the officer entitled to receive it. See Land Warrant.

The surveyors are authorized and directed, upon the application of any holder of land scrip, to survey at the expense of the government a sufficient quantity of vacant land to satisfy such legal claims of all holders of land scrip sold by this government. -Laws of Texas.

LAND WARRANT.

An instrument or writing issued by the Secretary of the General Land Office, authorizing a person to locate or take up a tract of new or uncultivated land.

LANE. In the Carolinas, all roads with fences on each side are called lanes.

LANYAP. Something over and above. Louisiana.

LARIAT. (Span. Lariata.) A rope made with thongs of raw hide twisted or braided, and sometimes of sea grass, used for catching and picketing wild horses or cattle. It is also called a lasso.

The greatest display of skill and agility of the arrieros consists in their dexterous use of the lazo or lariat. - Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies.

If the horse manifested the least restiveness, Beatte would worry him with the lariat so as almost to throw him on the ground.-Irving's Tour on the Prairies.

The lariat [of the Californian boy] darted from his hand with the force and precision of a rifle ball, and rested on the neck of the fugitive horse. — Emory's New Mexico and California, p. 97.

We cooked supper, and at dark picketed the animals round the camp, their lariats, or skin ropes, being attached to pegs driven in the ground.-Ruxton's Mexico and Rocky Mountains, p. 212.

The man that says the country won't be safe with Old Hickory, who larruped the Indians, and whipped the British, is a deceivin', lyin' cuss; and now, boys, all of you, off hats and hurrah for Jackson! - Hammond, Hills and Lakes.

The first chance I got I was gwine to larrup him like all fury, and as soon as he heard it, began cussin' like all wrath. — Southern Sketches, p. 31.

Just come on an' I'll larrup you till your mammy won't know you from a pile of sausage meat. Southern Fun and Sentiment, p. 34.

LASSO. (Span. lazo.) A long rope or cord, often made of raw hide, with a noose, for the purpose of catching wild horses or buffaloes on the Western prairies. It is also used by the muleteers for catching their mules. See Lariat.

To LATHER. To beat.-Wilbraham's Glossary.

LATHERING. A beating.

LATHY. Thin, slender, like a lath.

LAVE! (French, lève.) Get up! A term in common use among the hunters and mountaineers of the Western prairies and Rocky Mountains.

"Lave, ho! Lave! Prairies on fire! Quick-catch up! catch up!" This startling announcement instantly brought every man to his feet. Scenes in the Rocky Mountains, p. 34.

LAW DAY. The day on which a magistrate holds court at a country tavern. Common in thinly settled districts in the West.

LAW SAKES. Law sakes alive! i. e. for the Lord's sake! an expression denoting surprise or astonishment.

Law sakes alive, man! Make a question between our nation and England about fifty deserters! Sam Slick, Human Nature, p. 23.

LAWING. Going to law. "I got my debt of him by lawing." Western.

LAWYER. 1. (Himantopus nigricollis.) The black-necked Stilt; a small bird which lives on our shores, known also by the names of Tilt and Longshanks. On the New Jersey coast it is sometimes called lawyer, on account of its "long bill."

2. (Genus, Lota.) A fish found in the river St. Lawrence. Mr. Hammond, in his "Wild Northern Scenes," thus speaks of it:

There were taken in the net, pickerel, white fish, bass, and pike by the dozen; and, what was a stranger to me, a queer looking specimen of the piscatory tribe, half bullhead and half eel, with a cross of the lizard.

"What on earth is that?" said I to the fisherman.

"That," said he, "is a species of ling; which we call in these parts a lawyer." "A lawyer!" said I; "why, pray?"

"I don't know," he replied, "unless it's because he ain't of much use, and the slippriest fish that swims."-p. 45.

LAY. 1. Terms or conditions of a bargain; price. Ex. "I bought the articles at a good lay;" "He bought his goods on the same lay that I did mine." A low word, used in New England.-Pickering. Probably a contraction for outlay, i. e. expenditure.

2. The word is also used colloquially in New York and New England in relation to labor or contracts performed upon shares; as, when a man ships for a whaling voyage, he agrees for a certain lay, i. e. a share of the proceeds of the voyage.

He took in his fish at such a lay, that he made a good profit on them. - Peter Gott, the Fisherman.

TO LAY, for to lie. A vulgar error, equally common in England and in the United States. Thus we often hear and also see in print such phrases as, "he laid down," for he lay down to sleep; "that bed has been laid in," for has been lain in; "the land lays well," for lies well; it "lays due north," for lies, etc. In the following extract English and German grammar are both set at naught :

Lager beer derives its name from the long time it is allowed to lay (lager) in vats or casks, in cool cellars, previous to consumption. —Wells, Principles and Applications of Chemistry, p. 436.

LEADER. A length of finely twisted angler's hook to the line; a bottom.

hair, gut, or grass, for attaching an Called also a Snell.

LEAN-TO. A pent-house; an addition made to a house behind, or at the end of it, chiefly for domestic offices, of one story or more, lower than the main building, and the roof of it leaning against the wall of the house. Forby's Norfolk Glossary. The word is used in New England, where it is usually pronounced linter. Pickering.

Many of the domestic offices of the household were performed upon the stoop or lean-to, commonly called linter. - Brooke, Eastford.

LEATHER-WOOD. (Dirca palustris.) A small shrub with flexible branches and a tough, leathery bark, which grows in woods in the Northern States. It is also called Moose Wood; and in New England, Wicopy. LECOMPTONITE. An upholder of the pro-slavery constitution for Kansas promulgated at the city of Lecompton.

LEGGINGS. (Commonly written and pronounced leggins.) Indian wrappers for the legs; also worn by the white hunters and trappers of the West, both on account of the mud and to save the pantaloons from the sweat of the horse. The Indians of New Mexico and Texas wear leggings when they are entirely destitute of other garments. They are necessary there to protect the legs when riding through the chapporal. By some they are called Wrappers.

How piquantly do these trim and beaded leggings peep from under that simple dress of black, as its tall nut-brown wearer moves through the graceful mazes of the dance! - Hoffman, Winter in the West, p. 239.

The wolf springs with fearful growl towards Stemaw, who slightly wounds him with his axe, as he jumps backwards just in time to save himself from the infuriated animal, which catches in its fangs the flap of his leggin. — New York Spirit of the Times.

LEGISLATIVE. The Legislature. This, like the term "executive," is used in America as a noun; but it is by no means so common as that word.-Pickering. LEG-STRETCHER. It is said that drams are now called "leg-stretchers " in Vermont. It is an every-day occurrence there for passengers in the stage-coaches, while the latter are waiting for the mails, to say, guess I'll get out and stretch my legs," which always ends in their having a drink somewhere in the hotel.

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LENGTHY. Having length, long, not brief; tiresomely long. Applied often to dissertations or discourses; as, "a lengthy oration," "a lengthy speech."-Worcester.

This word was once very common among us, both in writing and in the language of conversation; but it has been so much ridiculed by Americans as well as Englishmen, that in writing it is now generally avoided. Mr. Webster has admitted it into his Dictionary; but (as need hardly be remarked) it is not in any of the English ones. It is applied by us, as Mr. Webster justly observes, chiefly to writings or discourses. Thus we say, a lengthy pamphlet, a lengthy sermon, etc. The English would say, a long, or (in the more familiar style) a longish sermon. It may be here remarked, by the way, that they make much more use of the termination ish than we do; but this is only in the language of conversation. — Pickering.

Mr. Pickering has many other interesting remarks on this word, for which I refer the reader to his work. The word has been gradually forcing its way into general use since the time in which he wrote; and that, too, in England as well as in America. Thus Mr. Rush, in relating a conversation which he had in London, observes: "Lord Harrowby spoke of words that had obtained a sanction in the United States, in the condemnation of which he could not join; as, for example, lengthy, which imported, he said, what was tedious as well as long- an idea that no other English word seemed to convey as well."— Residence in London, p. 294. The Penny Cyclopædia remarks on it to the same effect, and even disputes its American origin.

A writer in the Boston Daily Advertiser, under the signature of "W. X.," says, that he has met with the word lengthy in the London Times, the Liverpool Chronicle, Blackwood's Magazine, the Saturday Magazine, the British Critic, Quarterly Review, Monthly Review, Eclectic Review, Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Reviews, in the writings of Dr. Dibdin, Bishop Jebb, Lord Byron, Coleridge, etc. etc. Granby, an English author, uses the word lengthiness, which is a regularly formed noun from lengthy. Campbell uses the adverb lengthily. In his "Letters from the South," he says:

I could discourse lengthily on the names of Jugurtha, Juba, Syphax, etc.

and again:

The hair of the head is bound lengthily behind.

Here follow a few examples from English and American writers, out of the many that present themselves:

Murray has sent, or will send, a double copy of the Bride and Giaour; in the last one some lengthy additions; pray accept them according to the old custom. - Lord Byron's Letter to Dr. Clarke, Dec. 13, 1813.

All this excitement was created by two lengthy paragraphs in the Times.- London Athenæum, July 12, 1844, p. 697.

This man had timely warning from his God

To build a spacious ark of Gopher-wood;

He, moved through fear and faith, the structure rears,

Which cost the arduous task of six score years.

While Noah thus employed this lengthy space, etc.

Noah's Flood: a Poem by Jos. Vail, New London, 1796. Chalmers's Political Annals, in treating of South Carolina, is by no means as lengthy as Mr. Hewitt's History. Drayton's South Carolina.

I did not mean to have been so lengthy when I began. - Jefferson's Writings.

I forget whether Mr. Sibthorpe has mentioned, in any of his numerous and lengthy epistles, this circumstance. — Mrs. Clavers's Forest Life.

LENGTHILY. In a lengthy manner.

son.

Webster credits this word to Jeffer