Multitude N. multitude; numerous &c adj.; numerosity, numerality; multiplicity; profusion &c (plenty) 639; legion, host; great number, large number, round number, enormous number; a quantity, numbers, array, sight, army, sea, galaxy; scores, peck, bushel, shoal, swarm, draught, bevy, cloud, flock, herd, drove, flight, covey, hive, brood, litter, farrow, fry, nest; crowd &c (assemblage) 72; lots; all in the world and his wife.

V. eat, feed, fare, devour, swallow, take; gulp, bolt, snap; fall to; despatch, dispatch; discuss; take down, get down, gulp down; lay in, tuck in [Slang]; lick, pick, peck; gormandize &c 957; bite, champ, munch, cranch^, craunch^, crunch, chew, masticate, nibble, gnaw, mumble.

The statement has obtained and is more like the truth, that there were not more than a peck.

Fly down now and peck a hole in Botete, and let the water out, before the fish are all dead."

He would have made an excellent fourth when "Willie brewed a peck of malt, and Rab and Allan came to see," and the drinking contest for the Whistle commemorated in another lyric would have excited his keenest interest.

The children, who also had their gourds before them, were obliged to defend the contents valiantly; for at one moment a hen would peck something out, and, at the next, a dog would run off with a bit, or sometimes even a little pig would waggle up, and invariably give a most contented grunt when it had not performed the journey for nothing.

It was a general custom, wherever I have been, for the masters to give each of his slaves, male and female, one peck of corn per week for their food.

One peck of gourd-seed corn is to be measured out to each slave once every week.

"The quantity allowed by custom is a peck of corn a week!" The Maryland Journal, and Baltimore Advertiser, May 30, 1788.

"A single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of rice, is the ordinary quantity of provision for a hard-working slave; to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally, though rarely, added.

"The weekly allowance to grown slaves on this plantation, where I was best acquainted, was one peck of corn.

"The usual allowance of food was one quart of corn a day, to a full task hand, with a modicum of salt; kind masters allowed a peck of corn a week; some masters allowed no salt.

"The allowance of provisions for the slaves, is one peck of corn, in the grain, per week.

"In Georgia the planters give each slave only one peck of their gourd seed corn per week, with a small quantity of salt.

"The food of the slaves was three pecks of potatos a week during the potato season, and one peck of corn, during the remainder of the year.

"The subsistence of the slaves, consists of seven quarts of meal or eight quarts of small rice for one week!" William Savery, late of Philadelphia, an eminent Minister of the Society of Friends, who travelled extensively in the slave states, on a Religious Visitation, speaking of the subsistence of the slaves, says, in his published Journal, "A peck of corn is their (the slaves,) miserable subsistence for a week.

" The late John Parrish, of Philadelphia, another highly respected Minister of the Society of Friends, who traversed the South, on a similar mission, in 1804 and 5, says in his "Remarks on the slavery of Blacks;" "They allow them but one peck of meal, for a whole week, in some of the Southern states.

"Their usual allowance of food was one peck of corn per week, which was dealt out to them every first day of the week.

The preceding testimony proves conclusively, that the quantity of food generally allowed to a full-grown field-hand, is a peck of corn a week, or a fraction over a quart and a gill of corn a day.

Of the slaveholders and other witnesses, who give the fore-going testimony, the reader will perceive that no one testifies to a larger allowance of corn than a peck for a week; though a number testify, that within the circle of their knowledge, seven quarts was the usual allowance.

When this is the case, the amount of actual nutriment contained in a peck of the "gourd seed," may not be more than in five, or four, or even three quarts of "flint corn."

which would furnish the slave with his full allowance of a peck of corn a week for two months!

Ainsworth, in his Latin Dictionary estimates the modius, when used for the measurement of grain, at a peck and a half our measure, which would make the Roman slave's allowance two quarts of grain a day, just double the allowance provided for the slave by law in North Carolina, and six quarts more per week than the ordinary allowance of slaves in the slave states generally, as already established by the testimony of slaveholders themselves.

You see they get under my skirts and peck at my feet.

SEE Peck, Anne Merriman.