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ake fire. [Colloq.] It may be said of Dryden that he was at no time touchy about personal attacks. Saintsbury.

promiscuous; confused; tumultuous. "A tumultuary conflict." Eikon Basilike. A tumultuary attack of the Celtic peasantry. Macaulay. Sudden flight or tumultuary skirmish. De Quincey.

To engage with; to attack. [Obs.] It is not fit your lordship should undertake every companion that you give offense to. Shak.

actice of vaccinating, or inoculating with the cowpox, in order to prevent or mitigate an attack of smallpox. Cf. Inoculation.

Ravishment; rape; constupration. To do violence on, to attack; to murder. "She . . . did violence on herself." Shak. -- To do violence to, to outrage; to injure; as, he does violence to his own opinions.

; forcible; vehement; impetuous; fierce; furious; severe; as, a violent blow; the violent attack of a disease. Float upon a wild and violent sea. Shak. A violent cross wind from either coast. Milton.

To attack or beat with a waddy.

To make war; to invade or attack a state or nation with force of arms; to carry on hostilities; to be in a state by violence. Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it. Isa. vii. 1. Why should I war without the walls of Troy Shak. Our countrymen w…

tion. Schoolcraft. On the warpath, on a hostile expedition; hence, colloquially, about to attack a person or measure.

A sudden illness or relapse, often attended with fever, which attacks women in childbed. [Scot.]

A small nematode worm (Anguillula tritici) which attacks the grains of wheat in the ear. It is found in wheat affected with smut, each of the diseased grains containing a large number of the minute young of the worm.

-- Witches' besoms (Bot.), tufted and distorted branches of the silver fir, caused by the attack of some fungus. Maunder (Treas. of Bot.) -- Witches' butter (Bot.), a name of several gelatinous cryptogamous plants, as Nostoc commune, and Exidia glandulosa. See Nostoc. -- Witch grass (Bot.), a kind of grass (Panicum ca…

d against; to oppose; to resist, either with physical or moral force; as, to withstand an attack of troops; to withstand eloquence or arguments. Piers Plowman. I withstood him to the face. Gal. ii. 11. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast. The little tyrant of his fields withstood. Gray.…

occidentalis), and the prairie wolf, or coyote. Wolves often hunt in packs, and may thus attack large animals and even man.

To harass by pursuit and barking; to attack repeatedly; also, to tear or mangle with the teeth. A hellhound that doth hunt us all to death; That dog that had his teeth before his eyes, To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood. Shak.