sizar (sizar)

[Also sizer; cla ; degree; order. Neither was he [Christ] served in state, his attendants being of the mechanick size . Penn, Advice to Children, iii. A plain sermon, for a middling or lower size of people. Swift. 6. Rate of dimension, whether linear, square, or solid; material proportions; relative magnitude: now the usualene iij perchers of wax then shalle he fet, A-boue tho chymné that is sett, In syce ich on from other shalle be The leng the of other that men may se. Babees Book (E. E. T. S.), p. 314. Both the cherubims were of one measure and one size . 1 Ki. vi. 25. 7. One of a regularly increasing series of dimensions used for manufactured articles which are bought ready-made; specifically, as used by shoemakers, one third of an inch in length. There is not a size of paper in the palace large enough to tell you how much I esteem myself honoured in your remembrances. Donne , Letters, xxxii. This calumnious disguise was crowned and completed by a soft felt hat of the Tyrolese design, and several sizes too small. R. L. Stevens on , The Dynamiter, p. 98. The distinction between pensioners and sizers is by no means considerable. Nothing is more common than to see pensioners and sizers taking sweet counsel together, and walking arm in arm to St. Mary's as friends. Gradus ad Cant a brig i am (1824). The sizars paid nothing for food and tuition, and very little for lodging; but they had to perform some menial services from which they have long been relieved. They swept the court; they carried up the dinner to the fellows' table, and changed the plates and poured out the ale of the rulers of the society. Macaulay , Oliver Goldsmith. Sizars are generally Students of limited means. They usually have their commons free, and receive various emoluments. Cambridge University Calendar , 1889, p. 5. sizarship (sī zär-ship), n. [ sizar + -ship .] The position, rank, or privileges of a sizar. Public Schools, where the sons of the lower cla es waited on the sons of the upper cla es, and received certain benefits (in food, clothes, and instruction) from them in return. In fact the sizarships in our modern colleges appear to be a modified continuation of this ancient system. O'Curry, Ancient Irish, I. iv.