Search the Dictionary

A fierce, violent person, esp. a woman. Johnson.

To compel submission by violent measures; to harass; to persecute. The colonies may be influenced to anything, but they can be dragooned to nothing. Price. Lewis the Fourteenth is justly censured for trying to dragoon his subjects to heaven. Macaulay.

Acting rapidly and violently; efficacious; powerful; -- opposed to bland; as, drastic purgatives. -- n. (Med.)

lly, to dose by force; to put a potion down the throat of, as of a horse; hence. to purge violently by physic. As "to fell," is "to make to fall," and "to lay," to make to lie." so "to drench," is "to make to drink." Trench.

A driving; a violent movement. The dragon drew him [self] away with drift of his wings. King Alisaunder (1332).

o take in (a liquid), in any manner; to suck up; to absorb; to imbibe. And let the purple violets drink the stream. Dryden.

To rush and press with violence; to move furiously. Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails. Dryden. Under cover of the night and a driving tempest. Prescott. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Tennyson.

have no confessions, icons, or marriage ceremonies. They are communistic, opposed to any violence, and unwilling to use the labor of animals. Driven out of Russia proper, many have emigrated to Cyprus and Canada. See Raskolnik, below.

To put or throw down with more or less of violence; hence, to unload from a cart by tilting it; as, to dump sand, coal, etc. [U.S.] Bartlett. Dumping car or cart, a railway car, or a cart, the body of which can be tilted to empty the contents; -- called also dump car, or dump cart.

nced, whether by the unlawful restrain of his liberty or by actual or threatened physical violence, to incur a civil liability or to commit an offense.

A wave, or two or three successive waves, of great height and violence, at flood tide moving up an estuary or river; -- commonly called the bore. See Bore.

A sudden burst or violent display; an outburst; as, an ebullition of anger or ill temper.

cballium agreste (or Elaterium), the squirting cucumber. Its fruit, when ripe, bursts and violently ejects its seeds, together with a mucilaginous juice, from which elaterium, a powerful cathartic medicine, is prepared.

Violent distraction of mind; violent emotion; excessive grief of anxiety; insanity; madness. [Obs.] That unmatched form and feature of blown youth Blasted with ecstasy. Shak. Our words will but increase his ecstasy. Marlowe.

er related species. It is extracted as a bitter, white, crystalline substance, which is a violent purgative.

the genus Gymnotus (G. electricus), from two to five feet in length, capable of giving a violent electric shock. See Gymnotus. -- Electrical fish (Zoöl.), any fish which has an electrical organ by means of which it can give an electrical shock. The best known kinds are the torpedo, the gymnotus, or electrical eel, an…

To excite suddenly and violently, esp. by something highly delightful or inspiriting; to thrill; as, this patriotic sentiment electrified the audience. If the sovereign were now to immure a subject in defiance of the writ of habeas corpus . . . the whole nation would be instantly electrified by the news. Macaulay. Try…

To put in motion or action by violence; to drive. As swift as stones Enforced from the old Assyrian slings. Shak.

The period of violence in a fever or disease; paroxysm. Dunglison.

A moral offense; violation of duty; a sin or transgression; iniquity; fault. Ps. xix. 12.