Mirabilis 
3782 
These miracle-mongers have alarmed the world round 
about them to a discernment of their tricks. 
South, Works, III. xi. 
are 10 or 12 species, natives of the warmer parts of Amer- 
ica. M. Jalapa is the common four-o'clock or marvel of 
Peru. A few other species are somewhat cultivated. See 
mirabiiTtMmi-rab'i-Ut), n. [So named by miracle-play (mir'a-kl-pla), w. See miracle, 4. 
Glauber to express his surprise at its artificial Their U8ual name was P la y s > miracle-plays or miracles; 
production; < L. mirabili*, wonderful (see mir- > e . te mysteries not being employed in England, Yet 
able), + -ite' 2 .] A name given to the hydrous 
sulphate of sodium, or Glauber salt, occurring 
their character is essentially that of the plays termed mys- 
teries in France. A. W. Ward, Eng. Dram. Lit., I. 21. 
miriflcent 
ent is more or less inclined to the vertical. Looming and 
fata Morgana are species of mirage. See these words. 
Hence 2. Deceptiveness of appearance; a 
delusive seeming; an illusion. 
The poetry which had preceded him [Chaucer] ... at 
last had well nigh lost itself in chasing the mirarfe of alle- 
gory. 
springs. It is used as a substitute for soda in 
the manufacture of glass. 
mirablet (mir'a-bl), a. [= OF. mirable = Sp. 
Lowell, Study Windows, p. 285. 
. _ v 'ban), n. A fanciful name under 
One which nitrobenzol is sold as oil of mirbane or 
essence of mirbane. 
He was deeply displeased bv the demand for miracles, mire 1 (mir), n. [< ME. mire, myre, < Icel. mmr 
and repelled the support which men were ready to give to ] a ter nivri Norw mure Sw Dan mm- a 
-acle-worker. FartnwWy tfe!).,N.S.,XLIII. 1S4. J~J nun ' ~ rarT ," y . ' 
.. . . ,. ... * . . ' bog, swamp, = OHG. mios, MHG. G. mies, a 
derful. 
Not Neoptolemus so mirable, 
On whose bright crest Fame with her loud'st Oyes 
Cries "This is he ! " Shak., T. and C., iv. 5. 142. 
mirabolanet, inirabolant, " See myrobalan. r j -~~~ y . 
miracle (mir'a-kl), n. [< ME. miracle, myracle, miraculous (mi-rak'u-lus), a. [< F. miraculeux 
< OF. miracle', F. miracle = Pr. miracle = Sp. = Sp. milagroso = Pg. milagroso, miraculoso = 
of Popish Impostures (1603). (Nares.) 
miraculizet (mi-rak'u-liz), v. t. [< L. miractt- 
lum, a miracle (see miracle), + -4ze.] To repre- 
sent as a miracle; attribute to supernatural 
power. Shaftesbury. 
le = 8p. 
milagro = Pg. milagre = It. miracolo = D. G. 
Dan. Sw. mirakel, { L. miraculum, a wonderful 
sistence ; deep mud. 
He [the parson] sette not hys benefice to hyre, 
And leet his sclieep encombred in the myre. 
Chaucer, Gen. Prol. to C. T. (ed. Moms), 1. BOS. 
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing. 
Ps. Ixix. 2. 
2. Filth Dun In the mire. Seet?ni. 
f-'M' rfWVHMf l/Ol/ i J. i^. nt-t/bUUl Vi3V rif't't Ul/H'tt/OI/ -= 1 / - \ -- --- ----- 
It. miraeoloso, < ML. *miraculosus (in adv. mi- mire 1 (mir), <j.;pret. andpr. t mired, ppr. miring. 
mculose), wonderful, < L. miraculum, a wonder, 
. . 
L WW* 1 . To plunge and fix in 
. . , . , a woneru n*^t*wo^y, ^ . r 1M ,,,,,,,. N ^, ,, tt , ^^ w ^ M ,, f , & VA IU^J , , *, . ~ 
work, a miracle, a wonder, < mirari, wonder at, miracle: see miracle.] 1. Exceedingly sur- ' t or stall m mud ; sink m mud or in a 
< mirus, wonderful: see admire.'] 1. A wonder, 
or a wonderful thing ; something that excites 
admiration or astonishment. 
Be not offended, nature's miracle, 
Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me. 
Shak., 1 Hen. VI., v. 3. 64. 
He has faults, 
Belike, though he be such a miracle. 
Shirley, Love's Cruelty, i. 1. 
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle 
Its columns strew the wilderness. 
Byron, Childe Harold, iv. 153. 
How exquisitely minute, 
A miracle of design ! 
Tennyson, Maud, xxiv. 1. 
2. An effect in nature not attributable to any 
of the recognized operations of nature nor to 
the act of man, but indicative of superhuman 
power, and serving as a sign or witness thereof ; 
a wonderful work, manifesting a power superior 
to the ordinary forces of nature. 
That Cy tee tok Josue, be myracle of God and commande- 
ment of the Aungel, and destroyed it and cursed it, and 
alle hem that bylled it azen. Mandeville, Travels, p. 8. 
Eabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God : 
for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except 
God be with him. John iii. 2. 
Miracleshave been wrought to convert idolaters and the 
prising or wonderful; extraordinary; incom- 
prehensible: as, a miraculous escape. 
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous 
in the common. Emerson, Nature. 
2. Of the nature of a miracle ; working mira- 
cles ; performed by, involving, or exhibiting a 
power beyond the ordinary agency of natural 
laws; supernatural. 
Behind the high altar they have what they call a mirac- 
ulous picture of the virgin Mary, which, they say, was 
painted by St. Luke, but it is not to be seen. 
Pococke, Description of the East, II. i. 133. 
Generation after generation the province of the miracu- 
lous has contracted, and the circle of scepticism has ex- 
panded. Lecky, nationalism, 1. 104. 
Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ii. 152. 
To speak properly, there is not one miracle greater than 
another, they being the extraordinary effects of the hand 
of God, to which all things are of an equal facility. 
Sir T. Browne, Eeligio Medici, i. 17. 
A miracle may be accurately defined a transgression of 
a law of Nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by 
the interposition of some invisible agent. 
Hume, Human Understanding, Of Miracles, x., note. 
What are miracles? They are the acts and manifestations 
of a Spiritual Power in the universe, superior to the pow- 
ers and laws of matter. Channing, Perfect Life, p. 248. 
The definition of a miracle as a violation of the laws of 
nature is, in reality, an employment of language which, in 
the face of the matter, cannot be justified. 
Huxley, Hume, p. 129. 
3f. A miraculous story ; a legend. 
Whan seyd was al this miracle, every man 
As sobre was, that wonder was to se. 
Chaucer, Prol. to Sir Thopas, 1. 1. 
morass. 
Nor do I believe that there Is a single instance of a 
skeleton of one of the extinct mammifers having been 
found in an upright position, as if it had been mired. 
Darwin, Geol. Observations, ii. 351. 
2. To soil or daub with slimy mud or foul mat- 
ter. 
Smirch'd thus, and mired with infamy. 
Shak., Much Ado, iv. 1. 135. 
Harpies miring every dish. Tennyson, Lucretius. 
II. intrans. To sink in mud; especially, to 
sink so deep as to be unable to move forward; 
stick in the mud. 
Paint till a horse may mire upon your face. 
Shak., T. of A., iv. 3. 147. 
2. Preternatural, Superhuman, etc. See supemat- mire 2 t (mir), n. [< ME. mire, also mowre (not 
/!,. T , ; ln A S.), < Icel. maurr = Sw. my ra = Dan. myre 
' = D. miere,mier = MLG. LG. mire (> G. miere), 
an ant; cf. Ir. moirbh, W. mor(-grugyn) = Corn. 
murrian (pi.); OBulg. mravija. = Serv. mrav = 
Pol. mrowlca = Bohem. mravenec = Euss. mu- 
ravei; Qr.uvpu^, uvpfiof, L. formica (?) (> F. 
fourmi) ; Pers. mur, Zend maori, ant ; an an- 
cient Indo-Eur. designation of the insect, su- 
perseded in E. by the merely Teut. ant.] An 
ant. See pismire. 
Th mire 3 t (mir), v. i. [< L. mirari, wonder: see 
admire, mirror.] To wonder ; admire. 
He myred what course may be warelye taken. 
r, behold: femirage, ^rrorT A bel- Mjrecourt lace. See lace 
mire-crow (mir kro), n. The sea-crow, laugh- 
ing-gull, or pewit-gull. [Local, Eng.] 
mire-drum (mir'drum), n. [In earlier form 
mire-drumble, q, v. ; so called from its cry, .and 
_. .,., from haunting miry places.] A bittern. 
When he departed from the Alhambra, she betook her- mire-drumblet (mir'drum'bl), n. [Early mod. 
:lf to her mirador, overlooking the vega, whence she E - myredromble,<ME. myre-drombylle, -dromylle, 
-drommylle, -drumnyl; < mire^ + drunible.] Same 
as mire-drum. 
by extraordi- 
nary means; by means of a "miracle; super- 
naturally. 
Except themselues had beene almost miraculously skil- 
f ul! in Languages. 
The Sickness is miraculously decreased in this City, and 
Suburbs. Hoicell, Letters, I. iv. 24. 
Some cheats have pretended to cure diseases miracu- 
lously. Porteus, Works, II. xiv. 
< mirar 
vedere or gallery commanding an extensive 
view. See cut under belvedere. 
Dryden, Conquest of Granada, I. i. 1. 
self . = 
watched the army, as it went, inshining order, along trie 
road leading to Loxa. Irving, Granada, p. 107. 
mirage (mi-razh'), n. [< F. mirage (= Pg. mi- 
ragem = It. miragio), < mirer, < ML. mirare, 
look at: see mirror.] 1. An optical illusion 
due to excessive bending of light-rays in trav- 
- adjacent ' 
IHula is a byrde of the quantyte of a crowe sprong wyth 
speckes and pytchyth hys bylle in to a myre place and 
makyth a grete sowne and noyse, and herby it semyth that 
vlula is a myre dromble. 
Glanvtt, quoted in Cath. Aug., p. 240. 
f-ent densities, whereby distorted, displaced, t^^*^*^ C mm n *"*' 
.. i ,, -jji n -, Afi<_iiv UMUUM.OD] vyuciouv uiai-ui icu. uioLJ 
4. In the middle ages, one of a class of spec- or inverted images are produced. The requisite ".''j r C~7 TT ' 
tacles or dramatic representations exhibiting change in density arises only near the earth's surface, niiriadet, An obsolete form of myriad. 
the lives of the saints or other sacred subjects ; and the hot shining of the sun seems to be an invari- Miridae (mir'i-de), n. pi. [NL. (Douglas 
a miracle-play, somewhat resembling that still i>i Scott, 1865), < Miris + -idic.] A family of 
esembling that 
held at Oberammergau in Bavaria. Compare 
mystery 2 , 2. 
At marketts & myracles we medleth vs nevere. 
Piers Plowman's Crede (E. E. T. S.), 1. 107. 
The theatrical exhibitions in London, in the twelfth cen- 
tury, were called Miracles, because they consisted of sa- 
cred plays, or representations of the miracles wrought by 
the holy confessors. Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, p. 227. 
To a miracle, wonderfully ; admirably ; beyond concep- 
tion : as, he did his part to a miracle. 
miraclet (mir'a-kl), v. [ME. miraclen; < mira- 
cle, n.] I. intrans. To work wonders or mira- 
cles. 
This is the 5. beynge of blood deuyn, and miraclis more 
than man mai bileue but if he se it. 
Book of Quinte Essence (ed. Eurnivall), p. 11. 
II. trans. To make wonderful. 
Who this should be, 
Doth miracle itself, loved before me. 
Shak., Cymbeline, iv. 2. 29. 
miracle-monger (mir'a-kl-mung // ger), n. A 
wonder-worker; an impostor who pretends to 
work miracles. 
i. Superior Mirage. 2. Inferior Mirage. * . ^'" 
* "^ 
able antecedent. The mirage of the desert presents an 
appearance of objects reflected in a surface of water ; in 
this case the heated earth rarefies the air in the lower 
strata faster than it can escape, and the flatness of the 
ground conduces to the maintenance of the resulting ab- 
normal distribution of density. Displacement by mirage 
is commonly vertical, but is lateral when the density-gradi- 
as and 
of hete- 
ropterous insects of the section Cajisina", contain- 
ing Miris and two other genera, and of wide dis- 
tribution. The body is linear-elongate with subparal- 
lel sides, the head horizontal, clypeus very convex, pro- 
notum trapezoidal, femora sometimes tufted beneath, and 
antennse of variable length. 
miriflct (mi-rif'ik), a. [= F. mirifiqite = Sp. mi- 
r(ftco = Pg. It. mirifico, < L. rnirificus, causing 
wonder or admiration, extraordinary, < mirus, 
wonderful,-!- fa cere, make.] Wonder-working; 
wonderful. 
More numerous, wonder-working, and mirific. 
Urquhart, tr. of Rabelais, iii. 4. (Davies.') 
mirificalt (mi-rif i-kal), u. [< mirific + -al.] 
Same as mirific. 
miriflcent (mi-rif 'i-sent), /i. [< LL. as if *mirifi- 
cen(t-)n (in deriv. LL. niiriftcentia), < L. mirus, 
wonderful, +facere, make. Cf. mirific.] Caus- 
ing wonder. [Bare.] 
Enchantment Agrippa defines to be nothing but the 
conveyance of a certain mmficent power into the thing 
enchanted. Dr. H. More, Mystery of Iniquity. I. xviii. | 3. 
i(Encyc. Diet.) 
