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Ground, the earth, generally as opposed to the air or water. He swam till he reached ground. The bird fell to the ground.

Then follows the accidental or consequential signification in which ground implies any thing that lies under another; as, he laid colours upon a rough ground. The silk had blue flowers on a red ground.

Then the remoter or metaphorical signification; as, the ground of his opinion was a false computation. The ground of his work was his father’s manuscript.

After having gone through the natural and figurative senses, it will be proper to subjoin the poetical sense of each word, where it differs from that which is in common use; as wanton, applied to any thing of which the motion is irregular without terrour; as,

In wanton ringlets curl’d her hair.

To the poetical sense may succeed the familiar; as of toast, used to imply the person whose health is drunk; as,

The wise man’s passion, and the vain man’s toast.
POPE.

The familiar may be followed by the burlesque; as of mellow, applied to good fellowship:

In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow.
ADDISON.

Or of bite, used for cheat:

–More a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit.
POPE.

And, lastly, may be produced the peculiar sense, in which a word is found in any great author: as faculties, in Shakespeare, signifies the powers of authority:

–This Duncan
Has borne his faculties so meek, has been
So clear in his great office, that, etc.

The signification of adjectives may be often ascertained by uniting them to substantives; as, simple swain, simple sheep. Sometimes the sense of a substantive may be elucidated by the epithets annexed to it in good authors; as, the boundless ocean, the open lawns: and where such advantage can be gained by a short quotation, it is not to be omitted.

The difference of signification in words generally accounted synonymous, ought to be carefully observed; as in pride, haughtiness, arrogance: and the strict and critical meaning ought to be distinguished from that which is loose and popular; as in the word perfection, which, though in its philosophical and exact sense it can be of little use among human beings, is often so much degraded from its original signification, that the academicians have inserted in their work, the perfection of a language, and, with a little more licentiousness, might have prevailed on themselves to have added the perfection of a dictionary.

There are many other characters of words which it will be of use to mention. Some have both an active and passive signification; as fearful, that which gives or which feels terrour; a fearful prodigy, a fearful hare. Some have a personal, some a real meaning; as, in opposition to old, we use the adjective young of animated beings, and new of other things. Some are restrained to the sense of praise, and others to that of disapprobation; so commonly, though not always, we exhort to good actions, we instigate to ill; we animate, incite and encourage indifferently to good or bad. So we usually ascribe good, but impute evil; yet neither the use of these words, nor, perhaps, of any other in our licentious language, is so established as not to be often reversed by the correctest writers. I shall, therefore, since the rules of style, like those of law, arise from precedents often repeated, collect the testimonies on both sides, and endeavour to discover and promulgate the decrees of custom, who has so long possessed, whether by right or by usurpation, the sovereignty of words.

It is necessary, likewise, to explain many words by their opposition to others; for contraries are best seen when they stand together. Thus the verb stand has one sense, as opposed to fall, and another, as opposed to fly; for want of attending to which distinction, obvious as it is, the learned Dr. Bentley has squandered his criticism to no purpose, on these lines of Paradise Lost: