QUAKER GUNS. Wooden guns placed in the port-holes of merchant vessels.

We fancy our vessels of war which suffered the fillibuster Walker to escape were armed with Quaker guns.— Providence Journal.

TO QUALIFY. To swear to discharge the duties of an office; and hence to make oath of any fact; as, "I am ready to qualify to what I have asserted!"

Dr. Tate, of Virginia, the new Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department, this morning qualified and entered upon the duties of his office. - The (Balt.) Sun, Oct. 1, 1857.

QUARTER. A twenty-five cent piece, which is a quarter of a dollar, is often called simply a quarter.

QUARTERS. The negro huts of a plantation are termed the negro quarters, or simply the quarters.

QUEEN CITY. Cincinnati.

QUID. A corruption of cud; as, in vulgar language, a quid of tobacco. In Kent (England), a cow is said to chew her quid; so that cud and quid are the same. - Pegge's Anonymia.

QUILTING. A piece of reed, on which weavers wind the thread which forms the woof of cloth, is called a quill; an old English word. In New England, a certain process of winding thread is called quilling.

The child, Margaret, sits in the door of her house, on a low stool, with a small wheel, winding spools, in our vernacular, quilling. — Margaret, p. 6.

QUILTING-BEE, or QUILTING-FROLIC. An assemblage of women who unite their labor to make a bed-quilt. They meet by invitation, seat themselves around the frame upon which the quilt is placed, and in a few hours complete it. Tea follows, and the evening is sometimes closed with dancing or other amusements.

Now [in the days of Gov. Stuyvesant] were instituted quilting-bees and huskingbees, and other rural assemblages, where, under the inspiring influence of the fiddle, toil was enlivened by gaiety and followed up by the dance. — Irving, Knickerbocker.

R.

RACCOON. (Procylon lotor.) A well-known carnivorous animal found in most parts of North America, valuable for its fur. Vulgarly called Coon, which see.

TO RACE. To cause to run, to chase. A vulgar use of the word.

Between five and six o'clock on Thursday afternoon, a well-known character named Michael Clark, while passing the corner of Cathedral and Franklin streets, espied an old enemy named Edward Gettier, perched on a scaffold swinging against the side of a new house, busy applying a painter's brush to the structure, and regardless of all things below. Both had been previously concerned, on opposite sides, in several street affrays; and Clark thinking it a good time to let him know he was about again, slipped up, and commenced shooting at Gettier with a revolver. After several shots had been wasted, one of the balls took effect in Gettier's side, wounding him slightly. Clark then ran, and Gettier, jumping down, raced him for some distance, etc. (Balt.) Sun, Aug. 7, 1858.

RADDLE. In New England, an instrument consisting of a wooden bar, with a row of upright pegs set in it, which is employed by domestic weavers to keep the warp of a proper width, and prevent it from becoming entangled when it is wound upon the beam of a loom. It is an English term.

Webster.

RAFT. 1. A frame or float, made by laying pieces of timber across each other. -Johnson. In North America, rafts are constructed of immense size, and comprise timber, boards, staves, etc. They are floated down from the interior to the tide-waters, being propelled by the force of the current, assisted by large oars and sails, to their place of destination. The men employed on these rafts construct rude huts upon them, in which they often dwell for several weeks before arriving at the places where they are taken to pieces for shipping to foreign parts.

2. This term is also applied to a large collection of timber and fallen trees, which, floating down the great rivers of the West, are arrested in their downward course by flats or shallow places. Here they accumulate, and sometimes block up the river for miles. The great raft on Red river extended twenty miles, and required an immense outlay of money to remove it in order to make the river navigable.

3. A large number, a host. Vulgar.

We have killed Calhoun and Biddle; but there is a raft of fellows to put down yet. Maj. Downing's Letters, p. 93.

We've shoals of shad, whole rafts of canvas-back ducks, and no end of terrapins. - Burton, Waggeries.

Among its notices to correspondents, an exchange paper says: a raft of original articles are on file for next week." We hope none of them will prove mere lumber. - N. Y. Tribune.

The Elder's wife was a sick lookin' woman, with a whole raft o' young ones squalling round her.- Widow Bedott Papers, p. 210.

TO RAFT. To transport on a raft.- Webster.

RAFTING. The business of constructing and floating rafts.

RAFTSMAN. A man who follows the business of rafting.

RAG.

To take the rag off the bush, or simply to take the rag off, is to bear away the palm.

I had an everlastin' fast Narragansett pacer. I was considerable proud of him, I assure you; for he took the rag off the bush in great style. Sam Slick, Human Nature, p. 218.

"Don't be skeered," sais I, "Gineral, don't be skeered; I ain't a goin' for to hurt you, but jist to salute you as my senior officer, for it tante often two such old heroes like you and me meet, I can tell you. You fit at Waterloo, and I fit at Bunker's Hill; you whipt the French, and we whipt the English. P'raps history can't show jist two such battles as them; they take the rag off quite. — Sam Slick in England, Chapter XXXVIII.

RAIL. A piece of timber, cleft, hewed, or sawed, inserted in upright posts for fencing. The common rails among farmers are rough, being used as they are split from the chestnut or other trees. Webster.

TO RAIL IT. To travel by railroad.

From Petersburgh I railed it through the North Carolina pitch, tar, turpentine, and lumber country, to the great American pitch, tar, turpentine, and lumber depot -Wilmington. The prospect is, from the car windows, continuously an immensity of pine, pine, nothing but pine-trees, broken here and there with openings of pine under-brush. Letter in N. Y. Tribune, May 22, 1848.

RAIL-CAR. A car for transporting passengers on railroads.

RAILROAD. This word is in universal use in the United States, while "railway" is more common in England. So we say railroad track, railroad depot, and railroad car, which in England would be called a railway, a railway station, and railway carriage.

TO RAISE A RACKET. To make a racket or noise.

I see it warn't no use raisin' a racket; so I concluded I'd have satisfaction out of him, and began shakin' my fist at him. - Southern Sketches, p. 36.

TO RAISE CAIN. To cause a disturbance; to make a row.

...

Now bring Mexico into the Union, and I'd like to know which of the great powers would undertake to dictate to her, or tell her what she must do. There would'nt be any struttin' about, and talkin big, and threatenin' to raise Cain. Hammond, Lakes and Forest Scenes.

TO RAISE ONE'S HAIR. In the semi-barbarous dialect used by the hunters, trappers, and others who traverse the great plains and prairies of the West, scalping a man is "raising (or lifting) his hair."

Kit Carson is the paragon of mountaineers: to look at him no one would think that the mild-looking being before him was an incarnate devil in an Indian fight, and had raised more hair from the red-skins than any two men in the Western country. - Ruxton, Life in the Far West, p. 194.

RAISE. To make a raise is a vulgar American phrase, meaning to make a haul, to raise the wind.

The chances were altogether favorable for making a raise, without fear of detection. Simon Suggs, p. 48.

I made a raise of a horse and saw, after being a wood-piler's apprentice for a while. Neal, Sketches.

TO RAISE. 1. To cause to grow; to procure to be produced, bred, or propagated: as to raise wheat, barley, hops, etc.; to raise horses, oxen, or sheep. - Webster.

was

To raise is applied in the Southern States to the breeding of negroes. It is also sometimes heard at the North among the illiterate; as, "I raised in Connecticut," meaning brought up there. See more in Pickering's Vocabulary.

You know I was raised, as they say in Virginia, among the mountains of the North. Paulding, Letters from the South, Vol. I. p. 85.

Old negro Bill, belonging to Mr. Sampson, Hunt Co., Virginia, was raised there and served in the American Revolution, a portion of the time as a servant to Washington. (Wash.) Ev. Star, Jan. 7, 1857.

2. To obtain with difficulty or in a discreditable manner.

3. To make up, fabricate, invent; as, "That's a tale they've raised on me," meaning some ludicrous or disgraceful anecdote invented against a person. Western.

TO RAISE A BEAD. This expression is used at the West, and means to bring to a head, to make succeed. The figure is taken from brandy, rum, or other liquors, which will not " raise a bead," unless of the proper strength.

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The result was, if the convention had been then held, the party would'nt have been able to raise a bead.- Letter from Ohio, N. Y. Tribune, 1846.

RAISING-BEE, or RAISING. In New England and the Northern States, the operation or work of setting up the frame of a building. Webster. On such occasions the neighboring farmers are accustomed to assemble and lend their assistance. In this way the framework of the largest house or barn is set up in a few hours.

Raising-bees were frequent, where houses sprang up at the wagging of the fiddlestick, as the walls of Thebes sprang up of yore to the sound of the lyre of Amphion. - Knickerbocker's New York.

The spectacle of a raising, though so common-place an affair elsewhere, is something worth seeing in the woods. — Mrs. Clavers's Forest Life.

RAKE DOWN. A taking down, a scolding.

I have expected to be "blown up" in print, by "S- -1," before now, but have so far escaped—much to the disappointment of the b'hoys about here. I would submit with a good grace to a "rake down," if I could only succeed in starting again his "gray goose quill."— N. Y. Spirit of the Times.

RANCHO, or RANCH. (Span. rancho.) A rude hut of posts, covered with branches or thatch, where herdsmen or farm-laborers live or only lodge at night. RANCHERIA.

(Span.) The place, site, or house in the country where a number of rancheros collect together. The collection of few or many huts or ranchos into a small village.

RANCHERO. (Span.) A person who lives in a rancho; and hence any peasant or countryman.

RANGE. 1. The public lands of the United States are surveyed or divided into ranges, which designate the order of their arrangement into townships. Bouvier's Law Dict.

2. In Texas, the prairies on which the large herds of cattle graze and range are called cattle or stock ranges.

When any person may hunt estrays in another stock range, he shall notify the owner of said stock of his intention. - Laws of Texas.

The herdsman agrees to deliver a certain number of beeves, in marketable order. The range is then scoured and the requisite number obtained. — Olmsted s Texas, p. 371.

RANTERS. A gang of Baltimore bullies.

RAPIDS. The part of a river where the current moves with more celerity than the common current. Rapids imply a considerable descent of the earth, but not sufficient to occasion a fall of the water, or what is called a cascade or cataract. Webster.

RAT. A contemptuous term used among printers, to denote a man who works under price.

To RAT. Among printers, to work under price.

RAT OFFICE. A printing office in which full prices are not paid.

RATOONS. 1. (Span. retoño.) Sugar cane of the second and third year's growth, of which cuttings are made for planting the succeeding year. 2. The heart-leaves in a tobacco-plant. - Webster.

RATTLESNAKE. (Crotalus horridus.) A genus of serpents, celebrated for the danger which accompanies their bite, and for the peculiar appendages to their tail. This venomous reptile, of which there are many species, is exclusively confined to America; but they have greatly diminished in the United States in proportion to the increase of population. TO REALIZE. To feel or bring home to one's mind as a reality. In this sense it is not without English authority; as, " to realize one's position." (Eccl. Rev.)-Worcester.