vassal, vassall, vassell

& a. [French va al a va al, a subject, a tenant (Low Latin va allus, va us, vas us =a servant), from Bret.gwaz =a servant, a va al; Wel. & Corn. gwas a youth, a servant.] A. As substantive : 1. A feudatory; a tenant holding lands under a superior lord, and bound by his tenure to feudal services. "The grantor [of lands] was called the proprietor or lord; being he who retained the dominion or ultimate property of the feud or fee; and the grantee who had only the use and po e ion, according to the terms of the grant was styled the feudatory or va al , which was only another name for the tenant or holder of the lands; though on account of the prejudices which we have justly conceived against the doctrines that were afterward grafted on this system, we now use the word va al opprobriously, as synonymous to slave or bondsman."- Black stone: Comment., bk. ii., ch. 4. 2. A subject, a dependant. a retainer. "The prince who had lately been his pensioner and va al."- Macaulay : Hist . Eng ., ch. vi. *3. A servant; one who attends or acts by the will of another. "Either the soul becomes servant and va al to sin, or at the best it is led away captive by it." -Hale : Cont.; Of Self - denial . *4. A bondsman, a slave, a low wretch. "That shallow va al." Shakesp.: Love's Labor's Lost , i. 1. B. As adj .: Servile, subservient. "Thy va al wretch to be." -Shakesp .: Sonnet 141. * Rear - va al : One who holds of a lord, who is himself a va al. *văs'-sal, *văs-sall, v . t . [VASSAL, 8.] 1. To subject to va alage; to treat as a va al. "How am I va aled then? make such thy slaves, As dare not keep their goodne past their graves." Beaum, & Flet .: Moral Representation. 2. To command; to rise over or above; to dom i nate. "Some proud hill, whose stately eminence Va alls the fruit full vale's circumference," Browne: Britannia's Pastorals , i. 5. chin, "Over the vast world to seek a single man." Shakesp.: Coriolanus, iv. 1. 3. Huge in bulk and extent; enormous, ma ive, immense. "Huge statues, called Colo es, which they cut, will more vaste and mighty, if they frame them strad ling with their legs." P. Holland: Plutarch, p. 241. 4. Very great in numbers, quantity, or amount; as, a vast army. 5. Very great as regards degree or intensity. "Others with vast Typhean rage, more fell, Rend up the rocks." Milton: P. L. , ii. 539. B. As substantive: IMG:content-0415.png:[blocks in formation] 2. A great deal; a great quantity. (Prov.) *3. Applied by Shakespeare to- (1) The sea. "The god of this great vast ."- Pericles , iii. 1. (2) The darkne of midnight in which the prospect is not bounded by distinct objects. "In the dead vast and middle of the night." Hamlet , 1. 2. *vas'-ta-çie, s . [VAST.] A waste, a desert. "What Lidian desert, Indian vastacie ?" Play of Claudius Nero . (1607.) *văs-tāte, a . [Lat. vast at us , pa. par. of vas to = to lay waste. Laid waste; wasted. "The vastate ruins of ancient monuments." -Adams: Works , iii. 19. *văs-tā-tion, s. [Latin vastatio from vast at us , pa. par, of vas to to lay waste.] A laying waste; waste, devastation, destruction. "Such was the vast at i on he made of townes in this country."-Fuller: Worthies; Hants hire. *văs-tā'-tõr, s . [Lat.] One who devastates or lays waste; a devastator. "The vastators of the Church of England."-Gauden: Tears of the Church , p. 86. *văs-tid-1-ty, s . [Cf. O. Fr. vast ité , from Latin vastitatem , acc us. of vast it as vastne .] Immensity, vastne . "Perpetual durance, Through all the world's vastidity." Shakesp.: Measure for Measure , iii. 1. *vas'-ti-tüde, s. [Fr., from Lat. vastitudo .] 1. Vastne , immensity. 2. Destruction, vast at i on, devastation. "And aftir the bataill there shal be an vtter perpetuall vastitude and destruccion of them." -Joye: Expo sic i on of Daniel, ch. ix. sity. *vast-1-ty, s. [Lat. vast it as .) Vastne , immenThe huge vastity of the world may afford, even in this region beneath, such a competent space as is meet and convenient for motion."-P. Holland : Plutarch , p. 951. vast'-lý, adv . [Eng. vast ; -ly .] *1. Far and wide; as far as the eye can reach. "Like a late-sacked island vastly stood Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood." Shakesp.: Rape of Lucrece, 1,740. 2. In a vast degree; to a vast extent; very greatly. "The complaints were many, the abuses great, the causes of the church vastly numerous."- Bp . Taylor: Ser. mons, vol. iii., ser. 7.