Definition of "jack-a-lantern" []

• Alternative spelling of jack o'lantern. (noun)

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• "His neglect of it in this instance is as strong a proof as any that can be advanced, of his forgery: it makes that forgery the more obvious, his slip not being accidental, but intentional: it is a deliberate violation of a rule that must never be infringed; but as a countryman will sometimes run after a jack-a-lantern, till running after it he finds himself in a burying-ground, so Bracciolini suffered himself to be misled by his literary will-o'-the wisp, -- alliteration: therefore he preferred writing "_n_ec _n_unc," instead of "nec tunc;" he therefore did that which was fatal to the work that he wanted to palm off upon the world as the composition of a"