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Any bar, obstruction, or means of defense. Such a barricade as would greatly annoy, or absolutely stop, the currents of the atmosphere. Derham.

Of humble birth; or low degree; lowly; mean. [Archaic] "A pleasant and base swain." Bacon.

Vile; mean. "Thy baseborn heart." Shak.

In a base manner; with despicable meanness; dishonorably; shamefully.

agger kind fitted on the muzzle of a musket or rifle, so as to give the soldier increased means of offense and defense.

refix, originally the same word as by; joined with verbs, it serves: (a) To intensify the meaning; as, bespatter, bestir. (b) To render an intransitive verb transitive; as, befall (to fall upon); bespeak (to speak for). (c) To make the action of a verb particular or definite; as, beget (to get as offspring); beset (to…

and Mohammedans, whence the phrases to tell beads, to at one's beads, to bid beads, etc., meaning, to be at prayer.

To have a certain meaning, intent, or effect. Her sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform. Hawthorne.

Purport; meaning; intended significance; aspect.

acking in order to make progress. -- To beat about, to try to find; to search by various means or ways. Addison. -- To beat about the bush, to approach a subject circuitously. -- To beat up and down (Hunting), to run first one way and then another; -- said of a stag. -- To beat up for recruits, to go diligently abo…

The quality or state of being beggarly; meanness.

ition of, or like, a beggar; suitable for a beggar; extremely indigent; poverty-stricken; mean; poor; contemptible. "A bankrupt, beggarly fellow." South. "A beggarly fellowship." Swift. "Beggarly elements." Gal. iv. 9.

To mean, or intend. More than heart behighteth. Mir. for Mag.

Advantage; profit; benefit; interest; use. No mean recompense it brings To your behoof. Milton.

Since; inasmuch as. [Obs. or Colloq.] And being you have Declined his means, you have increased his malice. Beau. & Fl.

To think; to suppose. I will not believe so meanly of you. Fielding. To believe in. (a) To believe that the subject of the thought (if a person or thing) exists, or (if an event) that it has occurred, or will occur; -- as, to believe in the resurrection of the dead. "She does not believe in Jupiter." J. H. Newman. (b)…

A kind of divination anciently practiced by means of marked arrows drawn at random from a bag or quiver, the marks on the arrows drawn being supposed to foreshow the future. Encyc. Brit.

To demean; to conduct; to behave; -- followed by a reflexive pronoun. [Obs.] How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colors, and not ourselves be seen Shak.

ult. Shak. The rest . . . may . . . bethink themselves, and recover. Milton. We bethink a means to break it off. Shak.

s and seed capsules of wild hemp (Cannabis Indica), and chewed or smoked in the East as a means of intoxication. See Hasheesh.