PARIETAL.  From Latin paries, a wall; properly, a partition-wall, from the root of part or pare.  Pertaining to a wall.—­Webster.

At Harvard College the officers resident within the College walls constitute a permanent standing committee, called the Parietal Committee.  They have particular cognizance of all tardinesses at prayers and Sabbath services, and of all offences against good order and decorum.  They are allowed to deduct from the rank of a student, not exceeding one hundred for one offence.  In case any offence seems to them to require a higher punishment than deduction, it is reported to the Faculty.—­Laws, 1850, App.

  Had I forgotten, alas! the stern parietal monitions?
    Harvardiana, Vol.  III. p. 98.

The chairman of the Parietal Committee is often called the Parietal Tutor.

I see them shaking their fists in the face of the parietal tutor.—­Oration before H.L. of I.O. of O.F., 1849.

The members of the committee are called, in common parlance, Parietals.

Four rash and inconsiderate proctors, two tutors, and five parietals, each with a mug and pail in his hand, in their great haste to arrive at the scene of conflagration, ran over the Devil, and knocked him down stairs.—­Harvardiana, Vol.  III. p. 124.

  And at the loud laugh of thy gurgling throat,
  The parietals would forget themselves.
    Ibid., Vol.  III. p. 399 et passim.

  Did not thy starting eyeballs think to see
  Some goblin parietal grin at thee?
    Ibid., Vol.  IV. p. 197.

The deductions made by the Parietal Committee are also called Parietals.

  How now, ye secret, dark, and tuneless chanters,
  What is ’t ye do?  Beware the parietals.
    Harvardiana, Vol.  III. p. 44.

Reckon on the fingers of your mind the reprimands, deductions, parietals, and privates in store for you.—­Orat.  H.L. of I.O. of O.F., 1848.

The accent of this word is on the antepenult; by poetic license, in four of the passages above quoted, it is placed on the penult.

PART.  A literary appointment assigned to a student to be kept at an Exhibition or Commencement.  In Harvard College as soon as the parts for an Exhibition or Commencement are assigned, the subjects and the names of the performers are given to some member of one of the higher classes, who proceeds to read them to the students from a window of one of the buildings, after proposing the usual “three cheers” for each of the classes, designating them by the years in which they are to graduate.  As the name of each person who has a part assigned him is read, the students respond with cheers.  This over, the classes are again cheered, the reader of the parts is applauded, and the crowd disperses except when the mock parts are read, or the officers of the Navy Club resign their trusts.