s for the
species as exclude tobacco intended for a pipe or a cigarette.

In defining nouns by the genus-and-species method, restrict the genus to
the narrowest possible bounds. You will thus save the need for exclusions
later. Had you in your first definition of a cigar begun by saying that it
is tobacco, rather than smoking-tobacco, you would have violated this
principle; and you would have had to amplify the rest of your definition
in order to exclude chewing-tobacco, snuff, and the like.

EXERCISE - Definition

1. Define words of your own choosing in accordance with the principles
laid down in the preceding section of the text.

2. Define the following adjectives, adverbs, and verbs:

Miserable Rebuke Wise
Angrily Rapidly Boundless
Swim Paint Whiten
Haughtily Surly Causelessly

3. So define the following nouns as to prevent any possible confusion with
the nouns following them in parentheses:

Wages (salary) Ride (drive)
Planet (star) Truck (automobile)
Watch (clock) Reins (lines)
Jail (penitentiary) Iron (steel)
Vegetable (fruit) Timber (lumber)
Flower (weed) Rope (string)
Hail (sleet, snow) Stock (bond)
Newspaper (magazine) Street car (railway coach)
Cloud (fog) Revolver (rifle, pistol, etc.)
Mountain (hill) Creek (river)
Letter (postal card)

4. While remembering that the following words are of broad signification
and mean different things to different people, define them according to
their meaning to you:

Gentleman Courage
Honesty Beauty
Honor Good manners
Generosity A good while
Charity A little distance
Modesty Long ago

<How to Look Up a Word in the Dictionary>

So much for the words which are already yours, or which you can make yours
through your own unaided efforts. For convenience we have grouped with
them some words of a nature more baffling--words of which you know perhaps
but a single aspect rather than the totality, or upon which you can obtain
but a feeble and precarious grip. These slightly known words belong more
to the class now to be considered than to that just disposed of. For we
have now to deal with words over which you can establish no genuine
rulership unless you have outside help.

You must own a dictionary, have it by you, consult it carefully and