long suit
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Long \Long\, a. [Compar. {Longer}; superl. {Longest}.] [AS.
long, lang; akin to OS, OFries., D., & G. lang, Icel. langr,
Sw. l[*a]ng, Dan. lang, Goth. laggs, L. longus. [root]125.
Cf. {Length}, {Ling} a fish, {Linger}, {Lunge}, {Purloin}.]
1. Drawn out in a line, or in the direction of length;
protracted; extended; as, a long line; -- opposed to
short, and distinguished from broad or wide.
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2. Drawn out or extended in time; continued through a
considerable tine, or to a great length; as, a long series
of events; a long debate; a long drama; a long history; a
long book.
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3. Slow in passing; causing weariness by length or duration;
lingering; as, long hours of watching.
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4. Occurring or coming after an extended interval; distant in
time; far away.
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The we may us reserve both fresh and strong
Against the tournament, which is not long.
--Spenser.
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5. Having a length of the specified measure; of a specified
length; as, a span long; a yard long; a mile long, that
is, extended to the measure of a mile, etc.
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6. Far-reaching; extensive. " Long views." --Burke.
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7. (Phonetics) Prolonged, or relatively more prolonged, in
utterance; -- said of vowels and syllables. See {Short},
a., 13, and Guide to Pronunciation, [sect][sect] 22, 30.
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8. (Finance & Com.) Having a supply of stocks or goods;
prepared for, or depending for a profit upon, advance in
prices; as, long of cotton. Hence, the phrases: to be, or
go, long of the market, to be on the long side of the
market, to hold products or securities for a rise in
price, esp. when bought on a margin. Contrasted to
{short}.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Note: Long is used as a prefix in a large number of compound
adjectives which are mostly of obvious meaning; as,
long-armed, long-beaked, long-haired, long-horned,
long-necked, long-sleeved, long-tailed, long- worded,
etc.
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{In the long run}, in the whole course of things taken
together; in the ultimate result; eventually.
{Long clam} (Zool.), the common clam ({Mya arenaria}) of the
Northern United States and Canada; -- called also
{soft-shell clam} and {long-neck clam}. See {Mya}.
{Long cloth}, a kind of cotton cloth of superior quality.
{Long clothes}, clothes worn by a young infant, extending
below the feet.
{Long division}. (Math.) See {Division}.
{Long dozen}, one more than a dozen; thirteen.
{Long home}, the grave.
{Long measure}, {Long meter}. See under {Measure}, {Meter}.
{Long Parliament} (Eng. Hist.), the Parliament which
assembled Nov. 3, 1640, and was dissolved by Cromwell,
April 20, 1653.
{Long price}, the full retail price.
{Long purple} (Bot.), a plant with purple flowers, supposed
to be the {Orchis mascula}. --Dr. Prior.
{Long suit}
(a) (Whist), a suit of which one holds originally more
than three cards. --R. A. Proctor.
(b) One's most important resource or source of strength;
as, as an entertainer, her voice was her long suit.
{Long tom}.
(a) A pivot gun of great length and range, on the dock of
a vessel.
(b) A long trough for washing auriferous earth. [Western
U.S.]
(c) (Zool.) The long-tailed titmouse.
{Long wall} (Coal Mining), a working in which the whole seam
is removed and the roof allowed to fall in, as the work
progresses, except where passages are needed.
{Of long}, a long time. [Obs.] --Fairfax.
{To be long of the market}, or {To go long of the market},
{To be on the long side of the market}, etc. (Stock
Exchange), to hold stock for a rise in price, or to have a
contract under which one can demand stock on or before a
certain day at a stipulated price; -- opposed to {short}
in such phrases as, to be short of stock, to sell short,
etc. [Cant] See {Short}.
{To have a long head}, to have a farseeing or sagacious mind.
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from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Suit \Suit\ (s[=u]t), n. [OE. suite, F. suite, OF. suite,
sieute, fr. suivre to follow, OF. sivre; perhaps influenced
by L. secta. See {Sue} to follow, and cf. {Sect}, {Suite}.]
1. The act of following or pursuing, as game; pursuit. [Obs.]
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2. The act of suing; the process by which one endeavors to
gain an end or an object; an attempt to attain a certain
result; pursuit; endeavor.
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Thenceforth the suit of earthly conquest shone.
--Spenser.
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3. The act of wooing in love; the solicitation of a woman in
marriage; courtship.
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Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend,
Till this funereal web my labors end. --Pope.
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4. (Law) The attempt to gain an end by legal process; an
action or process for the recovery of a right or claim;
legal application to a court for justice; prosecution of
right before any tribunal; as, a civil suit; a criminal
suit; a suit in chancery.
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I arrest thee at the suit of Count Orsino. --Shak.
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In England the several suits, or remedial
instruments of justice, are distinguished into three
kinds -- actions personal, real, and mixed.
--Blackstone.
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5. That which follows as a retinue; a company of attendants
or followers; the assembly of persons who attend upon a
prince, magistrate, or other person of distinction; --
often written {suite}, and pronounced sw[=e]t.
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6. Things that follow in a series or succession; the
individual objects, collectively considered, which
constitute a series, as of rooms, buildings, compositions,
etc.; -- often written {suite}, and pronounced sw[=e]t.
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7. A number of things used together, and generally necessary
to be united in order to answer their purpose; a number of
things ordinarily classed or used together; a set; as, a
suit of curtains; a suit of armor; a suit of clothes; a
three-piece business suit. "Two rogues in buckram suits."
--Shak.
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8. (Playing Cards) One of the four sets of cards which
constitute a pack; -- each set consisting of thirteen
cards bearing a particular emblem, as hearts, spades,
clubs, or diamonds; also, the members of each such suit
held by a player in certain games, such as bridge; as,
hearts were her long suit.
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To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort
Her mingled suits and sequences. --Cowper.
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9. Regular order; succession. [Obs.]
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Every five and thirty years the same kind and suit
of weather comes again. --Bacon.
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10. Hence: (derived from def 7) Someone who dresses in a
business suit, as contrasted with more informal attire;
specifically, a person, such as business executive, or
government official, who is apt to view a situation
formalistically, bureaucratically, or according to formal
procedural criteria; -- used derogatively for one who is
inflexible, esp. when a more humanistic or imaginative
approach would be appropriate.
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{Out of suits}, having no correspondence. [Obs.] --Shak.
{Suit and service} (Feudal Law), the duty of feudatories to
attend the courts of their lords or superiors in time of
peace, and in war to follow them and do military service;
-- called also {suit service}. --Blackstone.
{Suit broker}, one who made a trade of obtaining the suits of
petitioners at court. [Obs.]
{Suit court} (O. Eng. Law), the court in which tenants owe
attendance to their lord.
{Suit covenant} (O. Eng. Law), a covenant to sue at a certain
court.
{Suit custom} (Law), a service which is owed from time
immemorial.
{Suit service}. (Feudal Law) See {Suit and service}, above.
{To bring suit}. (Law)
(a) To bring secta, followers or witnesses, to prove the
plaintiff's demand. [Obs.]
(b) In modern usage, to institute an action.
{To follow suit}.
(a) (Card Playing) See under {Follow}, v. t.
(b) To mimic the action of another person; to perform an
action similar to what has preceded; as, when she
walked in, John left the room and his wife followed
suit.
{long suit}
(a) (Card Playing) the suit[8] of which a player has the
largest number of cards in his hand; as, his long
suit was clubs, but his partner insisted on making
hearts trumps.. Hence: [fig.] that quality or
capability which is a person's best asset; as, we
could see from the mess in his room that neatness was
not his long suit.
{strong suit} same as {long suit},
(b) . "I think our strong suit is that we can score from
both the perimeter and the post." --Bill Disbrow
(basketball coach) 1998. "Rigid ideological
consistency has never been a strong suit of the Whole
Earth Catalogue." --Bruce Sterling (The Hacker
Crackdown, 1994)
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from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
53 Moby Thesaurus words for "long suit":
ability, area, bag, bump, caliber, capability, capacity,
cup of tea, dower, dowry, endowment, equipment, faculty, field,
flair, forte, genius, gift, instinct, line, main interest, makings,
manner, medium, metier, natural endowment, natural gift, oyster,
parts, pet subject, potential, power, powers, pursuit,
qualification, specialism, speciality, specialization, specialty,
strong flair, strong point, style, talent, talents, technicality,
the goods, the stuff, thing, type, vocation, way, weakness,
what it takes
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