Search the Dictionary

A firing in the direction of the length of a trench, or a line of parapet or troops, etc.; a raking fire.

A twist or spinning motion given to a ball in striking it that influences the direction it will take after touching a cushion or another ball. The King's, or Queen's, English. See under King.

Direction; command; authoritative admonition. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

So as to have motion or direction parallel to the equator.

make equal in weight; to counterbalance. "More than equiponderated the declension in that direction." De Quincey.

Situation or position with reference to direction of view or accessibility to influence of sun, wind, etc.; exposure; as, an easterly exposition; an exposition to the sun. [Obs.] Arbuthnot.

To set the eyes on, to see; to have a sight of. -- In the eye of the wind (Naut.), in a direction opposed to the wind; as, a ship sails in the eye of the wind.

g several sides, which may be seen from one point, or which is presented toward a certain direction; one of the bounding planes of a solid; as, a cube has six faces.

Without sudden change of direction or curvature; smooth; fowing; -- said of the figure of a vessel, and of surfaces, water lines, and other lines.

To coil (a rope, line, or hawser), by winding alternately in opposite directions, in layers usually of zigzag or figure of eight form,, to prevent twisting when running out. Faking box, a box in which a long rope is faked; used in the life-saving service for a line attached to a shot.

falsehood in the hand of the dial when pointing at a wrong hour, if rightly following the direction of the wheel which moveth it. Fuller.

A small vane or sail, used to keep the large sails of a smock windmill always in the direction of the wind. Clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. Is. xxx. 24.

Distant in any direction; not near; remote; mutually separated by a wide space or extent. They said, . . . We be come from a far country. Josh. ix. 6. The nations far and near contend in choice. Dryden.

in crystals and crystalline masses, vitreous in luster, and breaking rather easily in two directions at right angles to each other, or nearly so. The colors are usually white or nearly white, flesh-red, bluish, or greenish.

, the grain of timber which is transverse to the annular rings or plates; the direction of the medullary rays in oak and some other timber. Knight.

Capable of being split, cleft, or divided in the direction of the grain, like wood, or along natural planes of cleavage, like crystals. This crystal is a pellucid, fissile stone. Sir I. Newton.

Having alternate curvatures in opposite directions; bent in a zigzag manner.

To move now in one direction and now in another; to be wavering or unsteady; to be irresolute or undetermined; to vacillate.

A motion like that of waves; a moving in this and that direction; as, the fluctuations of the sea.

The part of a vane pointing the direction from which the wind blows.