1806. ] 
Heavy, Weighty. 
Heavy, being derived from to heawe, to 
lift with labour, fignifies hard to be lift- 
ed ; whereas weighty means having {peci- 
fic gravity. 
A poke of bran may be heavy without 
being weighty ; a bag of money may be 
weighty without being heavy ; a fack of 
coals is likely to be both heavy and 
weighty. 
In metaphor thefe words preferve the 
fame relation, An inconvenient burden 
is termed heavy ; an important burden is 
termed weighty : 
‘A fickly family is a heavy drawback 
upon a man’s comfort.” 
‘A con{picuous official fituation is a 
weighty undertaking.’ 
‘ A light wife makes a heavy hufband,’ 
‘ His agents fpeak weightily and fen- 
tentioufly.” 
Ditch, Trench, Cut, Drain, Channel. 
Hollow length is an idea common to all 
thefe words. Where the earth dug from 
the hollow is thrown up befide it, we ufu- 
ally call it a ditch ; where the earth is 
{pread on each fide fo as to leave no heap, 
we call it a trench; where the hollow is 
continued athwart a whole ifthmus, we 
call it a cut ; where its objeét is to lay 
the land dry, we call it a drain ; inafmuch 
as it affords paflage to water, we call ita 
channel. 
Ditch, being derived from fo dig, is na- 
turally ufed where that operation is ob- 
vious. ‘Trench, from trancher, to flit, is 
applicable to a furrow cut by the plough. 
Cut is a fection ; it implies continuity to 
the boundary. Drain (/achryma,) defines 
the ufe, to draw off water. Channel 
comes from canna, a tube, and therefore 
fuggetts the idea of pervivufoels. 
To leffen, 10 diminifh, to decreafe. 
The Saxon adjeftive Je/s, and the Latin 
adjective minus, fignify {mall : from the 
one Is formed the verb to leffen, and from 
the other, to diminifh, which both mean, 
when aétive, to make {maller, and when 
heuter, to become (maller. 
Thefe words are identical in their pro- 
per and in their metaphorical fenfe, and 
are an inftance of idle copioufnefs in the 
Englith language. 
‘ Leffen your garden. 
pences.’” 
‘Diminifh your park. Diminifh your 
outgoings.’ 
* An obje&t feemingly leffens in propor- 
tion to the diftance we recede.’ 
MONTHLY Maa., No, 143. 
Leffen your ex- 
Contributions to English Synonymy. 
417 
‘An object feemingly diminifhes in pro- 
portion to the diftance we recede.’ 
‘ A mean aétion leffens us in the fight 
of men.’ 
‘ Impioufly they thought 
Thee to diminifh.” 
‘ The religious fpirit has leffened on the 
Continent.’ 
« A diminifhing reputation.” 
To increafe means to grow, and to de- 
creafe means to ungrow: the acceflory 
ideas of graduality and of change from in- 
ternal caules are affociated with the term. 
‘ The river is decreafing.’- ¢ Health de- 
creafes ; troubles increafe.” . © See thy de- 
creafe, and haitento thy tomb.’ 
The ufe of this word as:a-verb-active, 
is not thoroughly ‘defenfible: yet Prior 
fays, 
Nor cherifh’d they relations poor, * 
That might decreafe their prefent ftore. 
Dealing, Trade, Merchaniry, Commer céy 
Traffic. i 
Thefe words are uied with fo little pre- 
ciflon, that one mult rather inquire what 
ought to be, than what is, their re{pective 
employment. 
Deal means part. A deal is part of a 
fir-tree, A deal at cards is a partition of 
the cards. Dealing is fubdivifion. Col- 
lateral words are the German ¢heil, part, 
and ¢heilen, to part. A dealer therefore 
is he who fubdivides what he purchafes, 
who tells out anew his commodities. 
Dealing is retail. A wholefale-dealer, 
though a common expreffion, is a contra= 
diction in terms: a retail-dealer, though 
a Common expreffion, is a pleonaf{m. 
Trade (tratta, draught,) implies draw. 
ing from the fource. He who imports his 
wine from Portugal, trades : he who buys 
‘candles of the chandler, trades; he who 
fends for cutlery to Birmingham, trades. 
Immediate fupply is the radical idea, whe 
domeftic or foreign aid be invoked. 
Merchantry began with the Latin 
words merere, to purchafe, to earn, and 
merx, any thing purchafed: but having 
been brought hither from abroad, it came 
to be applied, not, ason the Continent, to 
all thoie who purchafe for profit, but only 
to thofe who purchafe or fell in foreign 
countries. In Great Britain the foreign 
trader is called a merchant: we fay a wine. 
merchant, a filk-merchant, of thcfe wha 
import wine and filk : we call thofe manu- 
faciurers merchants who export the ftuffs 
they make: we apply the term merchant 
to all thofe who fetch or carry alien wares. 
A corn-chandler (from te cantle, to parcel 
3H Sut) 
