Part 241

2. Hence: Groveling; low; vulgar; as, a reptile race or crew; reptile vices.

There is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution, but of fear.

Burke.

And dislodge their reptile souls From the bodies and forms of men.

Coleridge.

Rep"tile, n. 1. (Zoöl.) An animal that crawls, or moves on its belly, as snakes,, or by means of small, short legs, as lizards, and the like.

An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.

Cowper.

2. (Zoöl.) One of the Reptilia, or one of the Amphibia.

The amphibians were formerly classed with Reptilia, and are still popularly called reptiles, though much more closely allied to the fishes.

3. A groveling or very mean person.

||Rep*til"i*a (r?p-t?l"?-?), n. pl. [NL.] (Zoöl.) A class of ||air-breathing oviparous vertebrates, usually covered with scales or ||bony plates. The heart generally has two auricles and one ventricle. ||The development of the young is the same as that of birds.

It is nearly related in many respects to Aves, or birds. The principal existing orders are Testidunata or Chelonia (turtles), Crocodilia, Lacertilla (lizards), Ophidia (serpents), and Rhynchocephala; the chief extinct orders are Dinosauria, Theremorpha, Mosasauria, Pterosauria, Plesiosauria, Ichtyosauria.

Rep*til"i*an (-an), a. Belonging to the reptiles.

Reptilian age (Geol.), that part of geological time comprising the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, and distinguished as that era in which the class of reptiles attained its highest expansion; -- called also the Secondary or Mezozoic age.

Rep*til"i*an, n. (Zoöl.) One of the Reptilia; a reptile.

Re*pub"lic (r?-p?b"l?k), n. [F. république, L. respublica commonwealth; res a thing, an affair + publicus, publica, public. See Real, a., and Public.]

1. Common weal. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

2. A state in which the sovereign power resides in the whole body of the people, and is exercised by representatives elected by them; a commonwealth. Cf. Democracy, 2.

In some ancient states called republics the sovereign power was exercised by an hereditary aristocracy or a privileged few, constituting a government now distinctively called an aristocracy. In some there was a division of authority between an aristocracy and the whole body of the people except slaves. No existing republic recognizes an exclusive privilege of any class to govern, or tolerates the institution of slavery.

Republic of letters, The collective body of literary or learned men.

Re*pub"lic*an (-l?-kan), a. [F. républicain.] 1. Of or pertaining to a republic.

The Roman emperors were republican magistrates named by the senate.

Macaulay.

2. Consonant with the principles of a republic; as, republican sentiments or opinions; republican manners.

Republican party. (U.S. Politics) (a) An earlier name of the Democratic party when it was opposed to the Federal party. Thomas Jefferson was its great leader. (b) One of the existing great parties. It was organized in 1856 by a combination of voters from other parties for the purpose of opposing the extension of slavery, and in 1860 it elected Abraham Lincoln president.

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Re*pub"lic*an (r?-p?b"l?-kan), n. 1. One who favors or prefers a republican form of government.