Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Kind?

\Kind\, a. [Compar. {Kinder}; superl. {Kindest}.] [AS. cynde, gecynde, natural, innate, prop. an old p. p. from the root of E. kin. See {Kin} kindred.] 1. Characteristic of the species; belonging to one's nature; natural; native. [Obs.] --Chaucer. It becometh sweeter than it should be, and loseth the kind taste. --Holland. 2. Having feelings befitting our common nature; congenial; sympathetic; as, a kind man; a kind heart. Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was his fault. --Goldsmith. 3. Showing tenderness or goodness; disposed to do good and confer happiness; averse to hurting or paining; benevolent; benignant; gracious. He is kind unto the unthankful and to evil. --Luke vi 35. O cruel Death, to those you take more kind Than to the wretched mortals left behind. --Waller. A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind. --Garrick. 4. Proceeding from, or characterized by, goodness, gentleness, or benevolence; as, a kind act. ``Manners so kind, yet stately.'' --Tennyson. 5. Gentle; tractable; easily governed; as, a horse kind in harness. Syn: Benevolent; benign; beneficent; bounteous; gracious; propitious; generous; forbearing; indulgent; tender; humane; compassionate; good; lenient; clement; mild; gentle; bland; obliging; friendly; amicable. See {Obliging}.
\Kind\, n. [OE. kinde, cunde, AS. cynd. See {Kind}, a.] 1. Nature; natural instinct or disposition. [Obs.] He knew by kind and by no other lore. --Chaucer. Some of you, on pure instinct of nature, Are led by kind t'admire your fellow-creature. --Dryden. 2. Race; genus; species; generic class; as, in mankind or humankind. ``Come of so low a kind.'' --Chaucer. Every kind of beasts, and of birds. --James iii.7. She follows the law of her kind. --Wordsworth. Here to sow the seed of bread, That man and all the kinds be fed. --Emerson. 3. Nature; style; character; sort; fashion; manner; variety; description; class; as, there are several kinds of eloquence, of style, and of music; many kinds of government; various kinds of soil, etc. How diversely Love doth his pageants play, And snows his power in variable kinds ! --Spenser. There is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. --I Cor. xv. 39. Diogenes was asked in a kind of scorn: What was the matter that philosophers haunted rich men, and not rich men philosophers ? --Bacon. {A kind of}, something belonging to the class of; something like to; -- said loosely or slightingly. {In kind}, in the produce or designated commodity itself, as distinguished from its value in money. Tax on tillage was often levied in kind upon corn. --Arbuthnot. Syn: Sort; species; class; genus; nature; style; character; breed; set.
\Kind\, v. t. [See {Kin}.] To beget. [Obs.] --Spenser.