Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The seed of mustard.
  • noun A very fine kind of shot used by ornithologists and taxidermists for shooting birds with least injury to the plumage; dust-shot. The name includes No. 10 shot and finer numbers.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Maybe it was Etta James 's "At Last," maybe it was "Up a Lazy River" or some other vintage tune, but there was not a single guy or doll still sitting in his or her seat, hunched over the jumbo lump crab salad with mustard-seed caviar and brown butter cashews.

    Hitting the Dance Floor Marshall Heyman 2012

  • The “Muhit” tells us that is a tree parcel yellow and red growing in parts of India and China, its leaf is that of the Tamarisk (Tarfá); its flower is coloured red, yellow and white; it bears a grain like mustard-seed (Khardal) and of its wood they make porringers.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • And if, where the least particle of the body divided is as big as a mustard-seed, a void space equal to the bulk of a mustard-seed be requisite to make room for the free motion of the parts of the divided body within the bounds of its superficies, where the particles of matter are

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

  • It is compared also to leaven, to sowing of seed, and to the multiplication of a grain of mustard-seed; by all which compulsion is excluded; and consequently there can in that time be no actual reigning.

    Leviathan 2007

  • And you answer with the parable of the mustard-seed, so small, but it can say to the mulberry tree: "be uprooted and planted in the sea and it will obey."

    Letters/Jlo and God: Mustard-seed Faith ** Judith "Jlo" Quinton 2007

  • Sinapismus are invented by plasters to raise blisters, and eating medicines of pitch, mustard-seed, and the like.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • And you answer with the parable of the mustard-seed, so small, but it can say to the mulberry tree: "be uprooted and planted in the sea and it will obey."

    Archive 2007-09-01 Judith "Jlo" Quinton 2007

  • Personally, I would have just eaten the mustard-seed pancakes.

    When you gotta have it, you gotta have it... anne 2006

  • Jamaica pepper, a few bay leaves, a little horse-radish, a handful or two of mustard-seed, a little salt and a little rockambol if you have any, if not a few shalots; boil them altogether in the alegar, which put to your walnuts and let it stand three or four days, giving them a scald once a day, then tie them up for use.

    English Housewifery 2004

  • A perl madlibs script behind this page generates random -- and ass-kicking -- kung-fu moves every fifteen minutes or so. inverted ghost lunge explosive sage stance burning rabbit cut flying fairy twist screaming cricket advance seven butterfly hammer valorous grasshopper hand vulgar chopstick style vulgar mustard-seed feet splendid virgin breath enlightened qi pose

    Boing Boing: September 1, 2002 - September 7, 2002 Archives 2002

Comments

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  • mustard-seed is a very useful word. Being the shortest word, it is easy to slip in to any other sentence without detection.

    May 2, 2022

  • One of my favorite Shakespearean fairies along with peasblossom and cobweb.

    May 3, 2022