succor, succour

t. [O. Fr. sucurre, soscorre, from Lat. succurro to run under, to run to the aid of, to succor; sub =under, and carro =to run; Fr. secourir; Sp. socorrer; Port. soccorrer; Ital. soccorrere. To run to the aid of; to aid, to help; to a ist in difficulty or distre ; to relieve. "To succour wasted regions, and replace The smile of opulence in sorrow's face." Cowper: Charity , 129. súc-cõr, suc'-coûr, *soc-oure, soc-ourse, *suc-urs, s . [O. Fr. socors , from Lat. succursus, from succurro to succor (q. v.).] descriptions among the islanders the Antilles, where they are the ghosts of the dead, vanishing when clutched; in New Zealand, where ancestral deities 'form attachments with females, and pay them repeated visits;' while in the Samoan Islands, such intercourse of inferior gods caused many supernatural conceptions;' and in Lapland, where details of this last extreme cla have also been placed on record. From these lower grades of culture we may follow the idea onward. Formal rites are specified in the Hindu Tantra, which enable a man to obtain a companion-nymph by worshiping her and repeating her name by night in a cemetery. Augustine, in an instructive pa age, states the popular notions of the visits of incubi yet he is careful not to commit himself to grave argumentation on nocturnal a positive belief in such spirits. Later theologians were le cautious, and grave intercourse with incubi and succubi was carried on till, at the height of med iæval civilization, we find it accepted in full belief by ecclesiastics and lawyers." -Tylor: Prim. Cult . (ed. 1873), ii. 189, 190. 2. Pathol . ( of the form succubus): Nightmare. suc-cu-lạ, s . [Etym. doubtful.] A plain axis or cylinder, provided with staves or handles for turning it, but having no drum.