[syn: distribute, administer, mete out, deal, parcel out, lot, dispense, shell out, deal out, dish out, allot, dole out]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Lot \Lot\ (l[o^]t), n. [AS. hlot; akin to hle['i]tan to cast
lots, OS. hl[=o]t lot, D. lot, G. loos, OHG. l[=o]z, Icel.
hlutr, Sw. lott, Dan. lod, Goth. hlauts. Cf. Allot,
Lotto, Lottery.]
[1913 Webster]
1. That which happens without human design or forethought;
chance; accident; hazard; fortune; fate.
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But save my life, which lot before your foot doth
lay. --Spenser.
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2. Anything (as a die, pebble, ball, or slip of paper) used
in determining a question by chance, or without man's
choice or will; as, to cast or draw lots.
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The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole
disposing thereof is of the Lord. --Prov. xvi.
33.
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If we draw lots, he speeds. --Shak.
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3. The part, or fate, which falls to one, as it were, by
chance, or without his planning.
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O visions ill foreseen! Each day's lot's
Enough to bear. --Milton.
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He was but born to try
The lot of man -- to suffer and to die. --Pope.
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4. A separate portion; a number of things taken collectively;
all objects sold in a single purchase transaction; as, a
lot of stationery; -- colloquially, sometimes of people;
as, a sorry lot; a bad lot.
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I, this winter, met with a very large lot of English
heads, chiefly of the reign of James I. --Walpole.
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5. A distinct portion or plot of land, usually smaller than a
field; as, a building lot in a city.
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The defendants leased a house and lot in the city of
New York. --Kent.
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6. A large quantity or number; a great deal; as, to spend a
lot of money; to waste a lot of time on line; lots of
people think so. [Colloq.]
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He wrote to her . . . he might be detained in London
by a lot of business. --W. Black.
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7. A prize in a lottery. [Obs.] --Evelyn.
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To cast in one's lot with, to share the fortunes of.
To cast lots, to use or throw a die, or some other
instrument, by the unforeseen turn or position of which,
an event is by previous agreement determined.
To draw lots, to determine an event, or make a decision, by
drawing one thing from a number whose marks are concealed
from the drawer.
To pay scot and lot, to pay taxes according to one's
ability. See Scot.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Lot \Lot\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Lotted; p. pr. & vb. n.
Lotting.]
To allot; to sort; to portion. [R.]
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To lot on or To lot upon, to count or reckon upon; to
expect with pleasure. [Colloq. U. S.]
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
lot
n 1: (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or
extent; "a batch of letters"; "a deal of trouble"; "a lot
of money"; "he made a mint on the stock market"; "see the
rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos"; "it must
have cost plenty"; "a slew of journalists"; "a wad of
money" [syn: batch, deal, flock, good deal, great
deal, hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle,
mint, mountain, muckle, passel, peck, pile,
plenty, pot, quite a little, raft, sight, slew,
spate, stack, tidy sum, wad]
2: a parcel of land having fixed boundaries; "he bought a lot on
the lake"
3: an unofficial association of people or groups; "the smart set
goes there"; "they were an angry lot" [syn: set, circle,
band, lot]
4: your overall circumstances or condition in life (including
everything that happens to you); "whatever my fortune may
be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the luck
of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success that was
her portion" [syn: fortune, destiny, fate, luck,
lot, circumstances, portion]
5: anything (straws or pebbles etc.) taken or chosen at random;
"the luck of the draw"; "they drew lots for it" [syn: draw,
lot]
6: any collection in its entirety; "she bought the whole
caboodle" [syn: bunch, lot, caboodle]
7: (Old Testament) nephew of Abraham; God destroyed Sodom and
Gomorrah but chose to spare Lot and his family who were told
to flee without looking back at the destruction
v 1: divide into lots, as of land, for example
2: administer or bestow, as in small portions; "administer
critical remarks to everyone present"; "dole out some money";
"shell out pocket money for the children"; "deal a blow to
someone"; "the machine dispenses soft drinks" [syn:
distribute, administer, mete out, deal, parcel out,
lot, dispense, shell out, deal out, dish out,
allot, dole out]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
465 Moby Thesaurus words for "lot":
A to Z, A to izzard, Friday, Friday the thirteenth, a mass of,
a world of, abundance, accidentality, acres, actuarial calculation,
adventitiousness, affluence, aggregate, aggregation, all,
all and sundry, allocate, allot, allotment, allow, allowance,
alpha and omega, amount, ample sufficiency, ampleness, amplitude,
appoint, appointed lot, apportion, appropriate to, army, array,
assemblage, assign, assign to, astral influences, astrology,
avalanche, bank, barrel, batch, be-all, be-all and end-all,
bearings, beginning and end, bevy, big end, bigger half, bit, bite,
block, blood, board lot, body, bonanza, book of fate,
bountifulness, bountiousness, brand, break, breed, budget,
build on, bumper crop, bunch, bundle, calculate, call, case, cast,
cast lots, casualness, chance, character, chattels real, chunk,
circle, circumstance, clan, clearing, clos, close, cloud, clump,
cluster, clutch, clutter, color, commission, complement, condition,
conglomerate, conglomeration, considerable, constellation,
contingent, copiousness, copse, count, count on, covey, croft,
crop, crowd, cup, cut, cut lots, cut the cards, deal, decree,
demesne, denomination, depend, description, designation,
destination, destine, destiny, detail, dies funestis, dividend,
dole, domain, doom, dose, draw lots, draw straws, dummy share,
each and every, earmark, enclave, end, equal share, estate,
even lot, everything, extravagance, exuberance, fatality, fate,
feather, fertility, field, fix, flight, flock, flocks, flood, flow,
flukiness, foison, footing, foredoom, foreordination, form,
fortuitousness, fortuity, fortune, forty, fractional lot, frontage,
full lot, full measure, fullness, future, gamble, game, generosity,
generousness, genre, genus, give, gob, gobs, good deal,
good fortune, good luck, grain, great abundance, great deal,
great plenty, grounds, group, grouping, groupment, grove, gush,
hail, half, halver, hap, happenstance, happy chance, hassock, heap,
heaps, heedless hap, helping, hive, holding, holdings, honor, host,
how they fall, hunk, ides of March, ilk, indeterminacy,
indeterminateness, inevitability, interest, jam, kidney, kin, kind,
kismet, knot, kraal, label, land, landed property, lands,
landslide, large amount, lashings, lavishness, law of averages,
legion, length and breadth, liberality, liberalness, line, loads,
location, lots, luck, lump, luxuriance, make, make assignments,
making, manner, manor, many, mark, mark off, mark out for, mass,
masses of, match coins, maximum, measure, meed, mess, messuage,
mete out, mint, mob, modality, mode, modicum, moiety, moira, mold,
more than enough, much, muchness, multiplicity, multitude, myriad,
myriads, nature, nest, number, numbers, numerousness, odd lot,
one and all, oodles, opportunity, opulence, opulency, ordain,
outpouring, overflow, pack, package, package deal, pale, parcel,
parcel of land, part, pass, patch, peck, percentage, persuasion,
phylum, pickle, piece, pile, piles, place, planets, plat, play,
play at dice, play the ponies, plenitude, plenteousness,
plentifulness, plenty, plight, plot, plot of ground, plurality,
portion, portion off, position, posture, pot, power, praedium,
predestination, predetermination, predicament, preference share,
prevalence, principle of indeterminacy, probability,
problematicness, prodigality, productiveness, profuseness,
profusion, property, proportion, push, quad, quadrangle, quadrat,
quantities, quantity, quantum, quite a few, quite a little, quota,
race, raffle off, raft, rafts, rake-off, random sample, rank,
ration, real estate, real property, realty, reckon on, repleteness,
repletion, reserve, restrict, restrict to, rich harvest, rich vein,
richness, riot, riotousness, risk, round lot, rout, ruck, run,
run of luck, scads, schedule, scores, section, segment,
serendipity, set, set apart, set aside, set off, shape, share,
shoal, shock, shoot craps, shower, sight, situation, slew, slews,
slice, small amount, small share, sort, spate, species, speculate,
sport, spot, stack, stacks, stake, stamp, standing, stars, state,
station, statistical probability, status, stock, stockholding,
stockholdings, stook, strain, stream, stripe, style,
substantiality, substantialness, sum, superabundance, swarm, tag,
teemingness, tenements, the breaks, the corpus, the ensemble,
the entirety, the like of, the likes of, the lot, the whole,
the whole range, theory of probability, thicket, throng, tidy sum,
toft, toss, tract, tribe, trust in, tuft, tussock, type,
uncertainty, uncertainty principle, unlucky day, variety, wad,
wads, wealth, weird, whatever comes, wheel of fortune, whole slew,
will of Heaven, wisp, worlds of
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary:
Lot
(Heb. goral, a "pebble"), a small stone used in casting lots
(Num. 33:54; Jonah 1:7). The lot was always resorted to by the
Hebrews with strictest reference to the interposition of God,
and as a method of ascertaining the divine will (Prov. 16:33),
and in serious cases of doubt (Esther 3:7). Thus the lot was
used at the division of the land of Canaan among the serveral
tribes (Num. 26:55; 34:13), at the detection of Achan (Josh.
7:14, 18), the election of Saul to be king (1 Sam. 10:20, 21),
the distribution of the priestly offices of the temple service
(1 Chr. 24:3, 5, 19; Luke 1:9), and over the two goats at the
feast of Atonement (Lev. 16:8). Matthias, who was "numbered with
the eleven" (Acts 1:24-26), was chosen by lot.
This word also denotes a portion or an inheritance (Josh.
15:1; Ps. 125:3; Isa. 17:4), and a destiny, as assigned by God
(Ps. 16:5; Dan. 12:13).
Lot, (Heb. lot), a covering; veil, the son of Haran, and
nephew of Abraham (Gen. 11:27). On the death of his father, he
was left in charge of his grandfather Terah (31), after whose
death he accompanied his uncle Abraham into Canaan (12:5),
thence into Egypt (10), and back again to Canaan (13:1). After
this he separated from him and settled in Sodom (13:5-13). There
his righteous soul was "vexed" from day to day (2 Pet. 2:7), and
he had great cause to regret this act. Not many years after the
separation he was taken captive by Chedorlaomer, and was rescued
by Abraham (Gen. 14). At length, when the judgment of God
descended on the guilty cities of the plain (Gen. 19:1-20), Lot
was miraculously delivered. When fleeing from the doomed city
his wife "looked back from behind him, and became a pillar of
salt." There is to this day a peculiar crag at the south end of
the Dead Sea, near Kumran, which the Arabs call Bint Sheik Lot,
i.e., Lot's wife. It is "a tall, isolated needle of rock, which
really does bear a curious resemblance to an Arab woman with a
child upon her shoulder." From the words of warning in Luke
17:32, "Remember Lot's wife," it would seem as if she had gone
back, or tarried so long behind in the desire to save some of
her goods, that she became involved in the destruction which
fell on the city, and became a stiffened corpse, fixed for a
time in the saline incrustations. She became "a pillar of salt",
i.e., as some think, of asphalt. (See SALT.)
Lot and his daughters sought refuge first in Zoar, and then,
fearing to remain there longer, retired to a cave in the
neighbouring mountains (Gen. 19:30). Lot has recently been
connected with the people called on the Egyptian monuments
Rotanu or Lotanu, who is supposed to have been the hero of the
Edomite tribe Lotan.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's):
Lot, Lotan, wrapt up; hidden; covered; myrrh; rosin