546 
S T E 
S T E 
of courage. L'Estrange .—A friend is useful to form an 
undertaking, and secure steadiness of conduct. Collier. 
STEA'DY, adj. [jxebij, Sax.] Firm; fixed; totter¬ 
ing.—Their feet steady, their hands diligent, their eyes 
watchful, and their hearts resolute. Sidney .—Regular; con¬ 
stant; undeviating; unremitted.—He—sails between worlds 
and worlds with steady wing. Milton. 
Steer the bounding bark with steady toil, 
When the storm thickens and the billows boil. Pope. 
Not wavering; not fickle; not changeable with regard to 
resolution or attention. 
Now clear I understand, 
What oft my steadiest thoughts have search’d in vain. 
Milton. 
A clear sight keeps the understanding steady. Locke. 
To STEADY, v. a. To make steady.—The bird not 
only clings with its claws, but partly supports itself by 
strongly inclining its tail against the wall, making that a 
fulcrum; and, thus steadied, it works and plasters the mate¬ 
rials into the face of the brick or stone. White. 
STEAK, s. [jticce, Sax.; which Mr. H. Tooke con¬ 
siders as the participle of pcican, to stick; a steak being 
“ a piece or portion of flesh so small, as that it may be taken 
up and carried, stuck upon a fork, or any slender sticking 
instrument.” Div. of Purl. ii. 221.]—A slice of flesh broiled 
or fried ; a collop.—The surgeon protested he had cured him 
very well, and offered to eat the first stake of him. 
Fair ladies who contrive 
To feast on ale and steaks. Swift. 
To STEAL, v. a. preterite, I stole, part. pass, stolen. 
\stilan, Goth, stela, Icel, ycelan, Sax.]—To take by theft; 
to take clandestinely; to take without right. To steal 
generally implies secrecy; to rob, either secrecy or violence. 
Dr. Johnson. The primitive is still, (Teut. stille), tacitly, 
hiddenly. Callander. 
Thou rann’st a tilt in honour of my love, 
And stol'st away the ladies’ hearts of France. Shakspeare. 
A schoolboy finding a bird’s nest, shews it his companion, 
and he steals it. Shakspeare .—To withdraw or convey 
without notice. 
Let us shift away, there’s warrant in that theft 
Which steals itself when there’s no mercy left. Shakspeare. 
To gain or effect by private and gradual means. 
Young Lorenzo 
Stole her soul with many vows of faith. 
And ne’er a true one. Shakspeare. 
To STEAL, v. n. To withdraw privily; to pass silently. 
—Fixt of mind to avoid further entreaty, and to fly all com¬ 
pany, one night she stole away. Sidney. 
I cannot think it. 
That he would steal away so guilty like. 
Seeing you coming. Shakspeare. 
A bride 
Should vanish from her clothes into her bed. 
As souls from bodies steal and are not spy’d. Donne. 
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow. 
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow. Pope. 
To practice theft; to play the thief; to take any thing 
thievishly; to have the habit of thieving.— Stealing is the 
taking from another what is his, without his knowledge or 
allowance. Locke. 
STEA'LER, s. One who steals; a thief.—The trans¬ 
gression is in the stealer. Shakspeare. 
STEA'LINGLY, ado. Slyly ; by invisible motion ; by 
secret practice.—They were diverse motions, they did 
so stealing/y slip one into another, as the latter part was 
ever in hand before the eye could discern the former was 
ended. Sidney. 
STEALTH, s. The act of stealing; theft.—The owner 
proveth the stealth to have been committed upon him 
by such an outlaw, and to have been found in the possession 
of the prisoner. Spenser on Ireland. 
The stealth of mutual entertainment 
With character too gross is written on Juliet. Shakspeare. 
The thing stolen. 
On his back a heavy load he bare 
Of nightly stealths, and pillage several. Spenser. 
Secret act; clandestine practice.— By stealth means se¬ 
cretly; clandestinely; with desire of concealment; but, like 
steal, is often used in a good sense.—The wisdom of the 
same spirit borrowed from melody that pleasure, which, 
mingled with heavenly mysteries, causeth the smoothness and 
softness of that which toucheth the ear, to convey as it were 
by stealth the treasure of good things into man’s mind. 
Hooker. 
The monarch blinded with desire of wealth. 
With steel invades his brother’s life by stealth 
Before the sacred altar. Dry den. 
STEA'LTIIY, adj. Done clandestinely; performed by 
stealth. 
Now wither’d murder with his stealthy pace, 
Moves like a ghost. Shakspeare. 
To STEAM, v. n. [fteman, Sax.] To smoke or vapour 
with moist heat. 
Let the crude humours dance 
In heated brass, steaming with fire intense. Philips. 
To send up vapours.—Ye mists that rise from steaming 
lake. Milton. 
See, see, my brother’s ghost hangs hovering there, 
O’er his warm blood, that steams into the air. Dry den. 
To pass in vapours. 
Scarcely had Phoebus in the gloomy east 
Got harnessed his fiery-footed team, 
Ne rear’d above the earth his flaming crest 
When the last deadly smoke aloft did steam. Spenser. 
To STEAM, v. a. To exhale; to evaporate. 
How ill did he beseeme 
In slouthful sleepe his molten heart to steme. Spenser. 
Steam is the name commonly given in our language to 
the visible moist vapour which arises from all bodies which 
contain juices easily expelled from them by heats not suffi¬ 
cient for their combustion. Thus we say, the steam of 
boiling water, of malt, of a tan bed, &c. It is distinguished 
from smoke by its not having been produced by combustion, 
by not containing any soot, and by its being condensible by 
cold into water, oil, inflammable spirits, or liquids composed 
of these. 
We see it rise in great abundance from bodies when they 
are heated, forming a white cloud, which diffuses itself and 
disappears at no very great distance from the body from 
which it was produced. In this case the surrounding air is 
found loaded with the water or other juices which seem to 
have produced it, and the steam seems to be completely 
soluble'in air, as salt is in water, composing, while thus 
united, a transparent elastic fluid. 
But in order to its appearance in the form of an opaque 
white cloud, the mixture with or dissemination in cold air 
is necessary. If a tea-kettle boils violently, so that the steam 
is formed at the spout in great abundance, it may be ob¬ 
served, that the visible cloud is not formed at the very mouth 
of the spout, but at a small distance before it, and that the 
vapour is perfectly transpaient at its first emission. This is 
rendered still more evident by fitting to the spout of the 
tea-kettle a glass pipe of any length, and of as large a 
diameter as we please. The steam is produced as copiously 
as without this pipe, but the vapour is transparent through 
the whole length of the pipe. Nay, if this pipe com¬ 
municate with a glass vessel terminating in another pipe, 
and if the vessel be kept sufficiently hot, the steam will be 
as abundantly produced at the mouth of this second pipe as 
before, 
