Size | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Size, n.

noun

n. [Abbreviated from assize, q. v.]

Extent of superficies or volume; bulk; bigness; magnitude; as, the size of a tree or of a mast; the size of a ship or of a rock.
A settled quantity or allowance. [Obs.] See ASSIZE.
(University of Cambridge, Eng.) An allowance of food and drink from the buttery, aside from the regular dinner at commons;—corresponding to battel at Oxford.
Figurative bulk; condition as to rank and character. [Obs.] “Men of a less size and quality.” L’Estrange.
A conventional relative measure of dimension, applied to a great variety of articles made up for sale, as shoes, gloves, and the like.
An instrument consisting of thin leaves fastened together at one end by a rivet, used for ascertaining the size of pearls.

Syn.—Dimension; bigness; largeness; greatness; magnitude.

Size, n.

noun

n. [W. syth, glue, starch, size, from syth, stiff, rigid. Cf. SIZING.]

Sense 1. A kind of weak glue made from the clippings of parchment, glove-leather, fish-skin, and the like, by boiling them down in water. It is used in paper-making, book-binding, paper-hanging, white-washing, and by painters as the vehicle of certain colors.

Sense 2. Any thing resembling size in being glutinous or viscid.

Sense 3. (Med.) The buffy coat which appears on the surface of coagulated blood drawn in inflammation. Wright.

Size, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. [imp. & p. p. SIZED; p. pr. & vb. n. SIZING.]

To adjust, or arrange, according to size or bulk. Hudibras.
To settle; to fix the standard of; as, to size weights and measures. [Rare.]
To swell; to increase the bulk of. Beaum. & Fl.
To cover with size; to prepare with size.
(Mining.) To sift, as pieces of ore or metal, through a wire sieve, in order to separate the finer from the coarser parts.

Size, v. i.

verbintransitive

(University of Cambridge, Eng.) To order food or drink from the buttery, or to enter a score, as upon the buttery-book.