Category:Liver

Liv"er, n.

1. One who, or that which, lives. And try if life be worth the liver's care. Prior.

2. A resident; a dweller; as, a liver in Brooklyn.

3. One whose course of life has some marked characteristic (expressed by an adjective); as, a free liver. Fast liver, one who lives in an extravagant and dissipated way. -- Free liver, Good liver, one given to the pleasures of the table. -- Loose liver, a person who lives a somewhat dissolute life.

liver Liv"er, n. Etym: [AS. lifer; akin to D. liver, G. leber, OHG. lebara, Icel. lifr, Sw. lefver, and perh. to Gr. live, v.] (Anat.)

Defn: A very large glandular and vascular organ in the visceral cavity of all vertebrates.

Note: Most of the venous blood from the alimentary canal passes through it on its way back to the heart; and it secretes the bile, produces glycogen, and in other ways changes the blood which passes through it. In man it is situated immediately beneath the diaphragm and mainly on the right side. See Bile, Digestive, and Glycogen. The liver of invertebrate animals is usually made up of cæcal tubes, and differs materially, in form and function, from that of vertebrates. Floating liver. See Wandering liver, under Wandering. -- Liver of antimony, Liver of sulphur. (Old Chem.) See Hepar. -- Liver brown, Liver color, the color of liver, a dark, reddish brown. -- Liver shark (Zoöl.), a very large shark (Cetorhinus maximus), inhabiting the northern coasts both of Europe and North America. It sometimes becomes forty feet in length, being one of the largest sharks known; but it has small simple teeth, and is not dangerous. It is captured for the sake of its liver, which often yields several barrels of oil. It has gill rakers, resembling whalebone, by means of which it separates small animals from the sea water. Called also basking shark, bone shark, hoemother, homer, and sailfish. -- Liver spots, yellowish brown patches or spots of chloasma.

liver Liv"er, n. (Zoöl.)

Defn: The glossy ibis (Ibis falcinellus); -- said to have given its name to the city of Liverpool.

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---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary

Liver - (Heb. kabhed, "heavy;" hence the liver, as being the heaviest of the viscera, Exodus 29:13, Exodus 29:22; Leviticus 3:4, Leviticus 3:1, Leviticus 3:10, Leviticus 3:15) was burnt upon the altar, and not used as sacrificial food. In Ezekiel 21:21 there is allusion, in the statement that the king of Babylon "looked upon the liver," to one of the most ancient of all modes of divination. The first recorded instance of divination (q.v.) is that of the teraphim of Laban. By the teraphim the LXX. and Josephus understood "the liver of goats." By the "caul above the liver," in Leviticus 4:9; Leviticus 7:4, etc., some understand the great lobe of the liver itself.