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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Litter \Lit"ter\ (l[i^]t"t[~e]r), noun [F. liti['e]re, LL. lectaria, fr. L. lectus couch, bed. See {Lie} to be prostrated, and cf. {Coverlet}.]
1. A bed or stretcher so arranged that a person, esp. a sick or wounded person, may be easily carried in or upon it.
There is a litter ready; lay him in 't. --Shak.
2. Straw, hay, etc., scattered on a floor, as bedding for animals to rest on; also, a covering of straw for plants.
To crouch in litter of your stable planks. --Shak.
Take off the litter from your kernel beds. --Evelyn.
3. Things lying scattered about in a manner indicating slovenliness; scattered rubbish.
Strephon, who found the room was void. Stole in, and took a strict survey Of all the litter as it lay. --Swift.
4. Disorder or untidiness resulting from scattered rubbish, or from thongs lying about uncared for; as, a room in a state of litter.
5. The young brought forth at one time, by a cat, dog, sow or other multiparous animal, taken collectively. Also Fig.
A wolf came to a sow, and very kindly offered to take care of her litter. --D. Estrange.
Reflect upon that numerous litter of strange, senseless opinions that crawl about the world. --South.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Litter \Lit"ter\ (l[i^]t"t[~e]r), verb (used without an object)
1. To be supplied with litter as bedding; to sleep or make one's bed in litter. [R.]
The inn Where he and his horse littered. --Habington.
2. To produce a litter.
A desert . . . where the she-wolf still littered. --Macaulay.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Litter \Lit"ter\, verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Littered} (l[i^]t"t[~e]rd); p. pr. & vb. n. {Littering}.]
1. To supply with litter, as cattle; to cover with litter, as the floor of a stall.
Tell them how they litter their jades. --Bp. Hackett.
For his ease, well littered was the floor. --Dryden.
2. To put into a confused or disordered condition; to strew with scattered articles; as, to litter a room.
The room with volumes littered round. --Swift.
3. To give birth to; to bear; -- said of brutes, esp. those which produce more than one at a birth, and also of human beings, in abhorrence or contempt.
We might conceive that dogs were created blind, because we observe they were littered so with us. --Sir T. Browne.
The son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp hagborn. --Shak.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
litter
noun
1: the offspring at one birth of a multiparous mammal
2: rubbish carelessly dropped or left about (especially in public places)
3: conveyance consisting of a chair or bed carried on two poles by bearers
4: material used to provide a bed for animals [syn: {bedding material}, {bedding}]
verb
1: strew; "Cigar butts littered the ground"
2: make a place messy by strewing garbage around
3: give birth to a litter of animals
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
153 Moby Thesaurus words for "litter": air mattress, arsy-varsiness, be confined, bear, bear a child, bear young, bed, bed down, bedding, bedstead, bier, bolster, brancard, break, bridle, brood, brush, bunk, cacolet, calve, camel litter, cast, clamjamfry, clutch, clutter, collateral, couch, curry, currycomb, cushion, dandy, debris, derange, disarrange, disarray, dishevel, dislocate, disorder, disorganize, dolly, doolie, doss, drench, drop, dust, farrago, farrow, fawn, feed, foal, fodder, fragments, fry, garbage, gentle, get, give birth, gocart, groom, gurney, handbarrow, handle, harness, hash, hatch, have, have a baby, have young, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hitch, hodgepodge, hysteron proteron, innerspring mattress, issue, jampan, jumble, jungle, junk, kelter, kip, kitten, labor, lamb, lie in, lumber, manage, mat, mattress, mess, mess up, milk, misarrange, mishmash, muddle, muss, muss up, nest, odds and ends, offal, offspring, pad, pallet, pillow, pup, raff, refuse, riffraff, rub down, rubbish, rubble, ruffle, rug, rummage, rumple, saddle, scatter, scramble, scrap, sedan, sedan chair, shoddy, sleeping bag, sofa, spat, spawn, springs, stretcher, strew, tame, tend, the hay, the sack, throw, topsy-turviness, topsy-turvydom, tousle, train, trash, travail, truck, tumble, turmoil, underbed, underbedding, unholy mess, waste, water, welter, whelp, yean, yoke, young
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:
Litter (Heb. tsab, as being lightly and gently borne), a sedan or palanquin for the conveyance of persons of rank (Isa. 66:20). In Num. 7:3, the words "covered wagons" are more literally "carts of the litter kind." There they denote large and commodious vehicles drawn by oxen, and fitted for transporting the furniture of the temple.
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