DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 dry wine
 無甜味酒

 Sweet a. [Compar. Sweeter superl. Sweetest.]
 1. Having an agreeable taste or flavor such as that of sugar; saccharine; -- opposed to sour and bitter; as, a sweet beverage; sweet fruits; sweet oranges.
 2. Pleasing to the smell; fragrant; redolent; balmy; as, a sweet rose; sweet odor; sweet incense.
    The breath of these flowers is sweet to me.   --Longfellow.
 3. Pleasing to the ear; soft; melodious; harmonious; as, the sweet notes of a flute or an organ; sweet music; a sweet voice; a sweet singer.
    To make his English sweet upon his tongue.   --Chaucer.
    A voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful.   --Hawthorne.
 4. Pleasing to the eye; beautiful; mild and attractive; fair; as, a sweet face; a sweet color or complexion.
 Sweet interchange
 Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains.   --Milton.
 5. Fresh; not salt or brackish; as, sweet water.
 6. Not changed from a sound or wholesome state. Specifically: (a) Not sour; as, sweet milk or bread. (b) Not state; not putrescent or putrid; not rancid; as, sweet butter; sweet meat or fish.
 7. Plaesing to the mind; mild; gentle; calm; amiable; winning; presuasive; as, sweet manners.
    Canst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades?   --Job xxxviii. 31.
    Mildness and sweet reasonableness is the one established rule of Christian working.   --M. Arnold.
 Note: ☞ Sweet is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, sweet-blossomed, sweet-featured, sweet-smelling, sweet-tempered, sweet-toned, etc.
 Sweet alyssum. Bot. See Alyssum.
 Sweet apple. Bot. (a) Any apple of sweet flavor. (b) See Sweet-sop.
 Sweet bay. Bot. (a) The laurel (Laurus nobilis). (b) Swamp sassafras.
 Sweet calabash Bot., a plant of the genus Passiflora (Passiflora maliformis) growing in the West Indies, and producing a roundish, edible fruit, the size of an apple.
 Sweet cicely. Bot. (a) Either of the North American plants of the umbelliferous genus Osmorrhiza having aromatic roots and seeds, and white flowers. --Gray. (b) A plant of the genus Myrrhis (Myrrhis odorata) growing in England.
 Sweet calamus, or Sweet cane. Bot. Same as Sweet flag, below.
 Sweet Cistus Bot., an evergreen shrub (Cistus Ladanum) from which the gum ladanum is obtained.
 Sweet clover. Bot. See Melilot.
 Sweet coltsfoot Bot., a kind of butterbur (Petasites sagittata) found in Western North America.
 Sweet corn Bot., a variety of the maize of a sweet taste. See the Note under Corn.
 Sweet fern Bot., a small North American shrub (Comptonia asplenifolia syn. Myrica asplenifolia) having sweet-scented or aromatic leaves resembling fern leaves.
 Sweet flag Bot., an endogenous plant (Acorus Calamus) having long flaglike leaves and a rootstock of a pungent aromatic taste. It is found in wet places in Europe and America. See Calamus, 2.
 Sweet gale Bot., a shrub (Myrica Gale) having bitter fragrant leaves; -- also called sweet willow, and Dutch myrtle. See 5th Gale.
 Sweet grass Bot., holy, or Seneca, grass.
 Sweet gum Bot., an American tree (Liquidambar styraciflua). See Liquidambar.
 Sweet herbs, fragrant herbs cultivated for culinary purposes.
 Sweet John Bot., a variety of the sweet William.
 Sweet leaf Bot., horse sugar.  See under Horse.
 Sweet marjoram. Bot. See Marjoram.
 Sweet marten Zool., the pine marten.
 Sweet maudlin Bot., a composite plant (Achillea Ageratum) allied to milfoil.
 Sweet oil, olive oil.
 Sweet pea. Bot. See under Pea.
 Sweet potato. Bot. See under Potato.
 Sweet rush Bot., sweet flag.
 Sweet spirits of niter Med. Chem. See Spirit of nitrous ether, under Spirit.
 Sweet sultan Bot., an annual composite plant (Centaurea moschata), also, the yellow-flowered (Centaurea odorata); -- called also sultan flower.
 Sweet tooth, an especial fondness for sweet things or for sweetmeats. [Colloq.]
 Sweet William. (a) Bot. A species of pink (Dianthus barbatus) of many varieties. (b) Zool. The willow warbler. (c) Zool. The European goldfinch; -- called also sweet Billy. [Prov. Eng.]
 Sweet willow Bot., sweet gale.
 Sweet wine. See Dry wine, under Dry.
 To be sweet on, to have a particular fondness for, or special interest in, as a young man for a young woman. [Colloq.] --Thackeray.
 Syn: -- Sugary; saccharine; dulcet; luscious.

 Dry a. [Compar. Drier superl. Driest.]
 1. Free from moisture; having little humidity or none; arid; not wet or moist; deficient in the natural or normal supply of moisture, as rain or fluid of any kind; -- said especially: (a) Of the weather: Free from rain or mist.
    The weather, we agreed, was too dry for the season.   --Addison.
 (b) Of vegetable matter: Free from juices or sap; not succulent; not green; as, dry wood or hay. (c) Of animals: Not giving milk; as, the cow is dry. (d) Of persons: Thirsty; needing drink.
    Give the dry fool drink.   -- Shak
 (e) Of the eyes: Not shedding tears.
    Not a dry eye was to be seen in the assembly.   -- Prescott.
 (f) Med. Of certain morbid conditions, in which there is entire or comparative absence of moisture; as, dry gangrene; dry catarrh.
 2. Destitute of that which interests or amuses; barren; unembellished; jejune; plain.
    These epistles will become less dry, more susceptible of ornament.   --Pope.
 3. Characterized by a quality somewhat severe, grave, or hard; hence, sharp; keen; shrewd; quaint; as, a dry tone or manner; dry wit.
    He was rather a dry, shrewd kind of body.   --W. Irving.
 4. Fine Arts Exhibiting a sharp, frigid preciseness of execution, or the want of a delicate contour in form, and of easy transition in coloring.
 Dry area Arch., a small open space reserved outside the foundation of a building to guard it from damp.
 Dry blow. (a) Med. A blow which inflicts no wound, and causes no effusion of blood. (b) A quick, sharp blow.
 Dry bone Min., Smithsonite, or carbonate of zinc; -- a miner's term.
 Dry castor Zool. a kind of beaver; -- called also parchment beaver.
 Dry cupping. Med. See under Cupping.
 Dry dock. See under Dock.
 Dry fat. See Dry vat (below).
 Dry light, pure unobstructed light; hence, a clear, impartial view. --Bacon.
    The scientific man must keep his feelings under stern control, lest they obtrude into his researches, and color the dry light in which alone science desires to see its objects.   -- J. C. Shairp.
 -- Dry masonry. See Masonry.
 Dry measure, a system of measures of volume for dry or coarse articles, by the bushel, peck, etc.
 Dry pile Physics, a form of the Voltaic pile, constructed without the use of a liquid, affording a feeble current, and chiefly useful in the construction of electroscopes of great delicacy; -- called also Zamboni's, from the names of the two earliest constructors of it.
 Dry pipe Steam Engine, a pipe which conducts dry steam from a boiler.
 Dry plate Photog., a glass plate having a dry coating sensitive to light, upon which photographic negatives or pictures can be made, without moistening.
 Dry-plate process, the process of photographing with dry plates.
 Dry point. Fine Arts (a) An engraving made with the needle instead of the burin, in which the work is done nearly as in etching, but is finished without the use acid. (b) A print from such an engraving, usually upon paper. (c) Hence: The needle with which such an engraving is made.
 Dry rent Eng. Law, a rent reserved by deed, without a clause of distress. --Bouvier.
 Dry rot, a decay of timber, reducing its fibers to the condition of a dry powdery dust, often accompanied by the presence of a peculiar fungus (Merulius lacrymans), which is sometimes considered the cause of the decay; but it is more probable that the real cause is the decomposition of the wood itself. --D. C. Eaton. Called also sap rot, and, in the United States, powder post. --Hebert.
 Dry stove, a hothouse adapted to preserving the plants of arid climates. --Brande & C.
 Dry vat, a vat, basket, or other receptacle for dry articles.
 Dry wine, that in which the saccharine matter and fermentation were so exactly balanced, that they have wholly neutralized each other, and no sweetness is perceptible; -- opposed to sweet wine, in which the saccharine matter is in excess.