King James Bible Dictionary

SET'TLE, noun [Latin sedile. See Set.] A seat or bench; something to sit on.

SET'TLE, verb transitive [from set.]

1. To place in a permanent condition after wandering or fluctuation.

I will settle you after your old estates. Ezekiel 36:11.

2. To fix; to establish; to make permanent in any place.

I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom forever. 1 Chronicles 17:14.

3. To establish in business or way of life; as, to settle a son in trade.

4. To marry; as, to settle a daughter.

5. To establish; to confirm.

Her will alone could settle or revoke. Prior.

6. To determine what is uncertain; to establish; to free from doubt; as, to settle questions or points of law. The supreme court have settled the question.

7. To fix; to establish; to make certain or permanent; as, to settle the succession to the throne in a particular family. So we speak of settled habits and settled opinions.

8. To fix or establish; not to suffer to doubt or waver.

It will settle the wavering and confirm the doubtful. Swift.

9. To make close or compact.

Cover ant-hills up that the rain may settle the turf before the spring.

Mortimer.

10. To cause to subside after being heaved and loosened by frost; or to dry and harden after rain. Thus clear weather settles the roads.

11. To fix or establish by gift, grant or any legal act; as, to settle a pension on an officer, or an annuity on a child.

12. To fix firmly. Settle your mind on valuable objects.

13. To cause to sink or subside, as extraneous matters in liquors. In fining wine, we add something to settle the lees.

14. To compose; to tranquilize what is disturbed; as, to settle the thoughts or mind when agitated.

15. To establish in the pastoral office; to ordain over a church and society, or parish; as, to settle a minister.

16. To plant with inhabitants; to colonize. The French first settled Canada; the Puritans settled New England. Plymouth was settled in 1620. Hartford was settled in 1636. Wethersfield was the first settled town in Connecticut.

17. To adjust; to close by amicable agreement or otherwise; as, to settle a controversy or dispute by agreement; treaty or by force.

18. To adjust; to liquidate; to cause it to sink or appear lower by receding from it.

To settle the land, among seamen, to cause it to sink or appear lower by receding from it.

SET'TLE, verb intransitive

1. To fall to the bottom of liquor; to subside; to sink and rest on the bottom; as, lees or dregs settle. Slimy particles in water settle and form mud at the bottom of rivers.

This word is used of the extraneous matter of liquors, when it subsides spontaneously. But in chemical operations, when substances mixed or in solution are decomposed, and one component part subsides, it is said to be precipitated. But may also be said to settle.

2. To lose motion or fermentation; to deposit, as feces.

A government on such occasions, is always thick before it settles. Addison.

3. To fix one's habitation or residence. Belgians had settled on the southern coast of Britain, before the Romans invaded the isle.

4. To marry and establish a domestic state. Where subsistence is easily obtained, children settle at an early period of life.

5. To become fixed after change or fluctuation; as, the wind came about and settled in the west.

6. To become stationary; To quit a rambling or irregular course for a permanent or methodical one.

7. To become fixed or permanent; to take a lasting form or state; as a settled conviction.

Chyle- runs through the intermediate colors till it settles in an intense red. Arbuthnot.

8. To rest; to repose.

When time hath worn out their natural vanity, and taught them discretion, their fondness settles on a proper object. Spectator.

9. To become calm; to cease from agitation.

Till the fury of his highness settle, Come not before him. Shak..

10. To make a jointure for a wife.

He sighs with most success that settles well. Garth.

11. To sink by its weight; and in loose bodies, to become more compact. We say, a wall settles; A house settles upon its foundation; a mass of sand settles and becomes more firm.

12. To sink after being heaved, and to dry; as, roads settle in spring after frost and rain.

13. To be ordained and installed over a parish, church or congregation. AB was invited to settle in the first society of New Haven. ND settled in the ministry when very young.

14. To adjust differences or accounts; to come to an agreement. He has settled with his creditors.

15. To make a jointure for a wife. Garth.

SET'TLED, participle passive Placed; established; determined; composed; adjusted.

SET'TLEDNESS, noun The state of being settled; confirmed state. [Little used.]

SET'TLEMENT, noun

1. The act of settling, the state of being settled.

2. The falling of the foul of foreign matter of liquors to the bottom; subsidence.

3. The matter that subsides; lees; dregs. [Not used. For this we use settlings.]

4. The act of giving possession by legal sanction.

My flocks, my fields, my woods, my pastures take,

With settlement as good as law can make. Dryden.

5. A jointure granted to a wife, or the act of granting it. We say, the wife has a competent settlement for her maintenance; or she has provision made for her by the settlement of a jointure.

6. The act of taking a domestic state; the act of marrying and going to housekeeping .

7. A becoming stationary, or taking permanent residence after a roving course of life.

8. The act of planting or establishing, as a colony; also, to place, or the colony established; as the British settlements in America or India.

9. Adjustment; liquidation; the ascertainment of just claims, or payment of the balance of a account.

10. Akjustment of differences; pacification; reconcisiation; as the settlement of disputes or controversies.

11. The ordaining or installment of a clergyman over a parish or a congregation.

12. A sum of money or other property granted to a minister on his ordination, exclusive of his salary.

13. Legal residence or establishment of a person in a particular parish or town, which entitles him to maintenance if a pauper, and subjects the parish or town to his support. In England, the poor are supported by the parish where they have a settlement. In New England they are supported by the town. In England, the statutes 12 Richard II. and 19 Henry VII. seem to be the first rudiments of parish settlements. By statute 13 and 14 Ch. II. a legal settlement is declared to be gained by birth, by inhabitancy, by apprenticeship, or by service for forty days. But the gaining of a settlement by so short a residence produced great evils, which were remedied by statute 1 James II.

14. Act of settlement, in British history, the statute of 12 and 13 William III. by which the crowd was limited to his present majesty's house, or the house of Orange.