Word Finder - jay

definition

Any one of the numerous species of birds belonging to several genera within the family Corvidae, including Garrulus, Cyanocitta, Aphelocoma, Perisoreus, Cyanocorax, Gymnorhinus, Cyanolyca, Ptilostomus, and Calocitta, allied to the crows, but smaller, more graceful in form, often handsomely coloured, usually having a crest, and often noisy.

definition

Other birds of similar appearance and behaviour.

definition

Any of various large papilionid butterflies of the genus Graphium.

definition

A dull or ignorant person. It survives today in the term jaywalking.

definition

Promiscuous woman; prostitute.

Jay and Adams distrusted the good faith of the French government.

A clause in the state constitution prohibited any justice of the Supreme Court from holding any other post save that of delegate to Congress on a "special occasion," but in November 1778 the legislature pronounced the secession of what is now the state of Vermont from the jurisdiction of New Hampshire and New York to be such an occasion, and sent Jay to Congress charged with the duty of securing a settlement of the territorial claims of his state.

Jay, however, in a letter written to the president of Congress from Spain, had expressed in strong terms his disapproval of such dependence upon France, and, on arriving in Paris, he demanded that Great Britain should treat with his country on an equal footing by first recognizing its independence, although the French minister, Count de Vergennes, contended that an acknowledgment of independence as an effect of the treaty was as much as could reasonably be expected.

Called to Paris in 1640 to assist Le Jay in the preparation of his polyglot Bible, he contributed to that work the Arabic and Latin versions of the book of Ruth and the Arabic version of the third book of Maccabees.

In 1774-1775 he wrote two influential anonymous pamphlets, which were attributed to John Jay; they show remarkable maturity and controversial ability, and rank high among the political arguments of the time.

The Tonight Show host Jay Leno auctioned a Harley-Davidson motorcycle signed by various celebrity guests.

The whole talk show wars between Conan O'Brien, NBC and Jay Leno were kind of a bore.

In 1982, Yankovic formed a band after consulting with an agent named Jay Levey, who he met while traveling with Dr. Demento's stage show.

This change of attitude is thought to have been due chiefly to his suspicion of the North aroused by John Jay's proposal to surrender to Spain for twentyfive or thirty years the navigation of the Mississippi.

Franklin, besides, was constantly called upon to meet the indebtedness of Lee and of Ralph Izard (1742-1804), and of John Jay, who in Madrid was being drawn on by the American Congress.

At last, after the British government had authorized its agents to treat with the commissioners as representatives of an independent power, thus recognizing American independence before the treaty was made, Franklin acquiesced in the policy of Jay.

The largest is the great emerald bird (Paradisea apoda), about the size of the common jay.

These deputies were twelve in number, six of whom - the lawyers Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, Grangeneuve and Jay, and the tradesman Jean Francois Ducos - sat both in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention.

Nominated chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1795, he presided during the August term, but the Senate refused to confirm the nomination, apparently because of his opposition to the Jay Treaty.

The woodcock, partridge, hawk, water-ousel, magpie, jay, raven, various kinds of owls, wood-pigeon, golden-crested wren, tufted lark and titmouse are among the birds which breed here.

The so-called Siberian jay is one of the most entertaining birds in the world.

Of the second congress, also, which met at Philadelphia on the 10th of May 1775, Jay was a member; and on its behalf he prepared an address to the people of Canada and an address to the people of Jamaica and Ireland.

On the 27th of September 1779 Jay was appointed minister plenipotentiary to negotiate a treaty between Spain and the United States.

Jay landed at Cadiz on the 22nd of January 1780, but was told that he could not be received in a formally diplomatic character.

In February 1781 Congress instructed Jay that he might make concessions regarding the navigation of the Mississippi, if necessary; but further delays were interposed, the news of the surrender of Yorktown arrived, and Jay decided that any sacrifice to obtain a treaty was no longer advisable.

In 1781 Jay was commissioned to act with Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson and Henry Laurens in negotiating a peace with Great Britain.

Finally, owing largely to Jay, who suspected the good faith of France, the American negotiators decided to treat independently with Great Britain.

On the 24th of July 1784 Jay landed in New York, where he was presented with the freedom of the city and elected a delegate to Congress.

On the 7th of May Congress had already chosen him to be secretary for foreign affairs, and in December Jay resigned his seat in Congress and accepted the secretaryship. He continued to act in this capacity until 1790, when Jefferson became secretary of state under the new constitution.

In making his first appointments to federal offices President Washington asked Jay to take his choice; Jay chose that of chief justice of the Supreme Court, and held this position from September 1789 to June 1795.

Georgia argued that it could not be so sued, on the ground that it was a sovereign state, but Jay decided against Georgia, on the ground that sovereignty in America resided with the people.

In 1792 Jay consented to stand for the governorship of New York State, but a partisan returningboard found the returns of three counties technically defective, and though Jay had received an actual majority of votes, his opponent, George Clinton, was declared elected.

Thereupon Washington, fearing that war might result, appointed Jay minister extraordinary to Great Britain to negotiate a new treaty, and the Senate confirmed the appointment by a vote of 18 to 8, although the non-intercourse resolution which came from the house a few days later was defeated in the senate only by the casting vote of Vice-President John Adams. Jay landed a Falmouth in June 1794, signed a treaty with Lord Grenville on the 19th of November, and disembarked again at New York on the 28th of May 1795.

The treaty, known in history as Jay's Treaty, provided that the north-western posts should be evacuated by the 1st of June 1796, that commissioners should be appointed to settle the north-east and the north-west boundaries, and that the British claims for British debts as well as the American claims for compensation for illegal seizures should be referred to commissioners.

Jay consented to this prohibition under the impression that the articles named were peculiarly the products of the West Indies, not being aware that cotton was rapidly becoming an important export from the southern states.

The Republican party, strongly sympathizing with France and strongly disliking Great Britain, had been opposed to Jay's mission, and had denounced Jay as a traitor and guillotined him in effigy when they heard that he was actually negotiating.

They filled newspapers with articles denouncing it, wrote virulent pamphlets against it, and burned Jay in effigy.

Two days before landing on his return from the English mission, Jay had been elected governor of New York state; notwithstanding his temporary unpopularity, he was re-elected in April 1798.

John Jay's son, William Jay (1789-1858), was born in New York City on the 16th of June 1789, graduated from Yale in 1807, and soon afterwards assumed the management of his father's large estate in Westchester county, N.Y.

Among William Jay's other writings, the most important are The Life of John Jay (2 vols., 1833) and a Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War (1849).

See Bayard Tuckerman, William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1893).

William Jay's son, John Jay (1817-1894), also took an active part in the anti-slavery movement.

He was in Congress during the final stages of the War of Independence, and in 1780 drafted instructions to Jay, then representing the United States at Madrid, that in negotiations with Spain he should insist upon the free navigation of the Mississippi and upon the principle that the United States succeeded to British rights affirmed by the treaty of Paris of 1763.

His influence largely shaped the form of the final draft of the constitution, but the labour was not finished with this draft; that the constitution was accepted by the people was due in an eminent degree to the efforts of Madison, who, to place the new constitution before the public in its true light, and to meet the objections brought against it, joined Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in writing The Federalist, a series of eighty-five papers, out of which twenty certainly, and nine others probably, were written by him.

Still thinking that foreign nations could be coerced through their commercial interests, he scouted as visionary the idea that Great Britain would go to war on a refusal to carry Jay's treaty into effect, thinking it inconceivable that Great Britain "would wantonly make war" upon a country which was the best market she had in the world for her manufactures, and one with which her export trade was so much larger than her import.

During the three years that Jay spent there, his preaching powers were rapidly developed.

An edition of Jay's Works in 12 vols., 8vo, revised by himself, was issued in 1842-1844, and again in 1856.

In the coniferous forests the black grouse, hazel grouse and willow grouse, capercailzie and woodcock are the principal game birds; the crane is found in marshy clearings, birds of prey are numerous, and the Siberian jay in the north and the common jay in the south are often heard.

In1796-1804he was a commissioner under article 7 of Jay's Treaty of 1794 to determine the claims of American merchants for damage through "irregular or illegal captures or condemnations," and during this time adjusted on behalf of Maryland a claim of the state to stock in the Bank of England.

By the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, which concluded the American War of Independence, the title to what is now Michigan passed to the United States, and in 1787 this region became a part of the North-West Territory; but it was not until 1796 that Detroit and Mackinac (Michilimackinac), in accordance with Jay's Treaty of 1794, were surrendered by Great Britain.

In Congress he denounced Hamilton's financial policy, opposed the Jay Treaty (1795) and the Alien and Sedition Acts, and advocated a continuance of the French alliance of 1778.

The fifth article of the Jay treaty of 1794 provided for a commission to decide what the St Croix river actually was, and this commission in 1798 defined the St Croix, saying that its mouth was in Passamaquoddy bay and that the boundary ran up this river and the Cheputnatecook to a marked monument.

He worked with Jay Gould for the completion of the Wabash line, and at the time of his greatest stock activity bought The New York Evening Express and The Mail and combined them as The Mail and Express, which he controlled for six years.

Tilden's heavy sales (during Field's absence in Europe) of "Elevated" stock, which forced the price down from 200 to 164; but Field lost much more in the great "Manhattan squeeze" of the 24th of June 1887, when Jay Gould and Russell Sage, who had been supposed to be his backers in an attempt to bring the Elevated stock to 200, forsook him, and the price fell from 1562 to 114 in half an hour.

Among the birds prized for their plumage are the marabout, crane, heron, blackbird, parrot, jay and humming-birds of extraordinary brilliance.