Chapter Seidlitz Water to Seraphim of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Semiramis of the North Margaret of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. (1353-1412.)
   Catherine II. of Russia (1729-1796).

Senanus (St.) fled to the island of Scattery, and resolved that no female form should ever step upon it. An angel led St. Canara to the island, but the recluse refused to admit her. Tom Moore has a poem on this legend, St. Senanus and the Lady. (Irish Melodies, No. 1. (See Kevin .)

Seneca The Christian Seneca. Bishop Hall of Norwich. (1574-1656.)

Senior Optime (3 syl.) A Cambridge University expression meaning one of the second-class in the mathematical tripos. The first class consists of Wranglers.
    In the University of Cambridge every branch is divided into three classes, and the three classes are called a tripos. In the mathematical tripos, those of the first class are called wranglers, those of the second class are senior optimes (3 syl.), and those of the third class junior optimes. Law, classical, and other triposes have no distinctive names, but are called Class I., II., or III. of the respective tripos.

Sennacherib, whose army was destroyed by the Angel of Death, is by the Orientals called King Moussal. (D' Herbelot, notes to the Koran.)

Se'nnight A week; seven nights. Fortnight, fourteen nights. These words are relics of the ancient Celtic custom of beginning the day at sunset, a custom observed by the ancient Greeks, Babylonians, Persians, Syrians, and Jews, and by the modern representatives of these people. In Gen. i. we always find the evening precedes the morning; as, “The evening and the morning were the first day,” etc.

Sentences (3 syl.). The four books of Sentences, by Pierre Lombard, the foundation of scholastic theology of the middle period. (See Schoolmen .)
   Master of the Sentences. Pierre Lombard, schoolman. (Died 1164.)

Sentinel. Archd. Smith says, “It is one set to watch the sentina (Lat.) or hold of a ship,” but the Fr. sentier, a path or “beat,” is far more probable. (French, sentinelle; Italian, sentinella; the French sentier is from the Latin semita)

Sepoy The Indian soldier is so called, says Bishop Heber, from sip, a bow, their principal weapon in olden times. (Sipahi, a soldier.)

Sept A clan (Latin, septum, a fold), all the cattle, or all the voters, in a given enclosure.

September Massacres An indiscriminate slaughter of Loyalists confined at the time in the Abbaye and other French prisons. Danton gave order for this onslaught after the capture of Verdun by the allied Prussian army. It lasted the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of September, 1792. As many as 8,000 persons fell in this massacre, among whom was the Princess de Lamballe.

Septuagesima Sunday In round numbers, seventy days before Easter. The third Sunday before Lent. Really only sixty-eight days before Easter.

Septuagint A Greek version of the Old Testament, so called because it was made, in round numbers, by seventy Jews; more correctly speaking, by seventy-two. Dr. Campbell disapproves of this derivation, and says it was so called because it was sanctioned and authorised by the Jewish Sanhedrim or great council, which consisted of seventy members besides the high priest. This derivation falls in better with the modern notion that the version was made at different times by different translators between B.C. 270 and 130. (Latin, septuaginta, seventy.)
    The Septuagint contains the Apocrypha. According to legend, the Septuagint was made at Alexandria by seventy-two Jews in seventy-two days.

Seraglio The palace of the Turkish sultan, situated in the Golden Horn, and enclosed by walls seven miles and a half in circuit. The chief entrance is the Sublime Gate; and the chief of the large edifices is