Spencer
['spensə] or ['spɛnsɚ]
Definition
(noun.) English philosopher and sociologist who applied the theory of natural selection to human societies (1820-1903).
Editor: Zeke--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) One who has the care of the spence, or buttery.
(n.) A short jacket worn by men and by women.
(n.) A fore-and-aft sail, abaft the foremast or the mainmast, hoisted upon a small supplementary mast and set with a gaff and no boom; a trysail carried at the foremast or mainmast; -- named after its inventor, Knight Spencer, of England [1802].
Edited by Ethelred
Definition
n. (in ships and barques) a fore-and-aft sail abaft the fore and main masts.
n. a short over-jacket worn by men or women named after Earl Spencer (1782-1845).
Inputed by Boris
Examples
- She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round face and curly flaxen hair. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- The Spencer rifle was one of the early ones that came into use. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
- His father had been a miller in the small Massachusetts town of Spencer, where Elias was born in 1819. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- Later, the Henry or Winchester breech-loading rifle and the Spencer magazine gun were introduced and did good service. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
- In 1839 Spencer described an electrotype process and carried the date of his operations back to September, 1837. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- Then in 1838, Spencer applied these principles in making casts, and Jacobi in Russia shortly after electro-gilded a dome of a cathedral in St. Petersburg. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
- If you want to see this faith in all its na?veté go into those quaint rationalist circles where Herbert Spencer's ghost announces the laws of life, with only a few inessential details omitted. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- One of the successful applications of Electro-Metallurgy is founded on the original application of it by Mr. Spencer. Frederick C. Bakewell. Great Facts.
- Herbert Spencer, inquiring what knowledge is of most worth, concluded that from all points of view scientific knowledge is most valuable. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
Typist: Mag