SOB 
318 SOB 
elevating the mind.—Proverbs were ambitiously seized by 
the lyric and by the epic in their most rapid career, and 
their sublimest soarings. Parr. 
SOAVE, a town of Austrian Italy, in the Veronese. Po¬ 
pulation 1600; 10 miles east of Verona. 
SOAY, a small island of Scotland, on the south-west coast 
of the isle of Skye. 
SOAY, two small islands of Scotland, on the west coast 
of Harris. 
SOAY, a small pasture island of Scotland, on the coast of 
Sutherlandshire, near the entrance of Loch Inver harbour, in 
the parish of Assint. 
To SOB, v. n. Q'eobgenb, complaining, Saxon. It is 
from the verb peopian, to grieve, to lament. See Lye and 
Serenius .] To heave audibly with convulsive sorrow; to 
sigh with convulsion. 
When thy warlike father, like a child. 
Told the sad story of my father’s death, 
He twenty times made pause to sob and weep. Shakspeare. 
SOB, s. A convulsive sigh ; a convulsive act of respira¬ 
tion obstructed by sorrow. 
Break heart, or choak with sobs my hated breath; 
Do thy own work, admit no foreign death. Dry den. 
To SOB, v. a. To soak. A cant word. —The tree being 
sobbed and wet, swells. Mortimer. 
SO'BBING, s. Act of lamenting.—The hoarse sobbings 
of the widow’d dove. Drummond. 
SO'BER, adj. [sobrius, Lat., sobre, Fr.] Temperate, 
particularly in liquors; not drunken.—Live a sober, righte¬ 
ous and godly life. Common Prayer .—The vines give 
wine to the drunkard as well as to the sober man. Bp. Tay¬ 
lor. —No sober temperate person, whatsoever other sins he 
may be guilty of, can look with complacency upon the 
drunkenness and sottishness of his neighbour. South .— 
Not overpowered by drink.—A law there is among the Gre¬ 
cians, whereof Pittacus is author; that he which being over¬ 
come with drink did then strike any man, should suffer 
punishment double, as much as if he had done the same 
being sober. Hooker. —Not mad ; right in the understand¬ 
ing.—Another, who had a great genius for tragedy, following 
the fury of his natural temper, made every man and woman 
in his plays stark raging mad: there was not a sober person 
to be had ; all was tempestuous and blustering. Dry den. —- 
No sober man would put himself into danger, for the 
applause of escaping without breaking his neck. Dryden. 
—Regular; calm ; tree from inordinate passion.—This same 
young so5er-blooded boy a man cannot make him laugh. 
Shakspeare. —Cieca travelled all over Peru, and is a grave 
and sober writer. Abbot. —Young men likewise exhort to 
be sober minded. Tit. —The governor of Scotland being* 
of great courage and sober judgment, amply performed 
his duty both before the battle and in the field. Hayward. 
—These confusions disposed men of any sober understand¬ 
ing to wish for peace. Clarendon. —Among them some 
sober men confessed, that as his Majesty’s affairs then stood, 
he could not grant it. Clarendon. 
To these, that sober race of men, whose lives 
Religious, titled them the sons of God, 
Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame 
Ignobly to the trains and to the smiles 
Of these fair atheists. Milton. 
Be your designs ever so good, your intentions ever so 
sober, and your searches directed in the fear of God. Wa- 
terland. —Serious ; solemn ; grave. 
Petruchio 
Shall offer me, disguis’d in sober robes, 
To old Baptista as a schoolmaster. 
Come, civil night. 
Thou soier-suited matron, all in black. 
Twilight grey 
Had in her sober livery all things clad. 
What parts great France from sober Spain, 
A little rising rocky chain: 
Of men born south or north the hill. 
Those seldom move; these ne’er stand still. Prior. 
For Swift and him despis’d the farce of state. 
The sober follies of the wise and great. Pope. 
See her sober over a sampler, or gay over a jointed baby. 
Pope. 
To SO'BER, v. a. To make sober; to cure of intoxica¬ 
tion. Dr. Johnson. —This is a very old English verb: it 
occurs in the Prompt. Parvulorum. 
A little learning is a dangerous thing ; 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring ; 
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain. 
And drinking largely sobers us again. Pope. 
SO'BERLY, adv. Without intemperance; without 
madness; temperately; moderately.—Let any prince think 
soberly of his forces, except his militia of natives be valiant 
soldiers. Bacon. —Coolly; calmly.—Whenever children 
are chastised, let it be done without passion, and soberly, 
laying on the blows slowly. Locke. 
SOBERMI'NDEDNESS, s. [from sober-minded; which 
see in the fourth sense of Sober.] Calmness; regularity ; 
freedom from inordinate passion.—To induce habits of 
modesty, humility, temperance, frugality, obedience; in one 
word sober-mindedness. Bp. Porteus. 
SO'BERNESS, s. Temperance, especially in drink.— 
Keep my body in temperance, soberness and chastity. 
Common Prayer. —Calmness; freedom from enthusiasm ; 
coolness.—I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak 
forth the words of soberness and truth. Acts. —A person 
noted for his soberness and skill in spagyrical prepa¬ 
rations, made Helmont’s experiment succeed very well. 
Boyle. —The soberness of Virgil might have shewn the dif¬ 
ference. Dryden. 
SOBERNHEIM, a town of the Prussian province of the 
Lower Rhine, on the river Nahe. Population 1400. 
SOBERTON, or Suberton, a parish of England, in 
Southamptonshire; 3j miles east of Bishop’s Waltham. Po¬ 
pulation 760. 
SOBIESLAU, a town in the interior of Bohemia; 58 
miles south-south-east of Prague. Population 2200. 
SOBOTKA, a town of Bohemia; 42 miles east-north east 
of Prague. Population 1400. 
SOBRI’ETY, s. [from sobriete, Fr., sobrius, Lat Not 
frequent in the plural number; nor has Dr. Johnson fur¬ 
nished an example of that kind. Bishop Taylor and South 
use it. See the fifth meaning.] Temperance in drink ; so¬ 
berness.—Drunkenness is more uncharitable to the soul, and 
in Scripture is more declaimed against than gluttony; and 
sobriety hath obtained to signify temperance in drinking. 
Bp. Taylor. —Present freedom from the power of strong 
liquor; general temperance.—In setting down the form of 
common prayer, there was no need that the book should 
mention either the learning of a fit, or the unfitness of an 
ignorant minister, more than that he which describeth the 
manner how to pitch a field, should speak of moderation and 
sobriety in diet. Hooker. —Freedom from inordinate pas¬ 
sion.—The libertine could not prevail on men of virtue and 
sobriety to give up their religion. Rogers. —Calmness ; 
coolness.—Enquire with all sobriety and severity, whether 
there be in the footsteps of nature, any such transmission of 
immateriate virtues and what the force of imagination is. 
Bacon. —The sobrieties of a holy life. Bp. Taylor. —The 
sobrieties of virtue. South. — Sobriety in our riper years is 
the effect of a well concocted warmth: but where the prin¬ 
ciples are only phelgm, what can be expected but an insipid 
manhood, and old infancy. Dryden. —If sometimes Ovid 
appears too gay, there is a secret gracefulness of youth, which 
accompanies his writings, though the stayedness and sobriety 
of age be wanting. Dryden. —Seriousness; gravity.—A 
report without truth; and I had almost said, without any 
sobriety or modesty. Waterland. 
Shakspeare. 
Shakspeare. 
Milton. 
Mirth 
