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Dry and hard; impermeable; unyielding. [Obs.] Clay in dry seasons is costive, hardening with the sun and wind. Mortimer.

To make a countermine or counterplot; to plot secretly. 'Tis hard for man to countermine with God. Chapman.

or; to counterbalance; to compensate. Upon balancing the account, the profit at last will hardly countervail the inconveniences that go allong with it. L'Estrange.

To run, hunt, or chase after; to follow hard upon; to pursue. We coursed him at the heels. Shak.

ho flatters. There was not among all our princes a greater courtier of the people than Richard III. Suckling.

A catch crop planted, esp. in orchards. as a protection to the soil in winter, as well as for the benefit of the soil when plowed under in spring.

A disease in the West Indies. It is a kind of ulcer on the soles of the feet, with very hard edges. See Yaws. Dunglison.

A thin, dry biscuit, often hard or crisp; as, a Boston cracker; a Graham cracker; a soda cracker; an oyster cracker.

A hard brittle cake or biscuit. Spenser.

Salted codfish hardened by pressure. Kane.

A genus of small, hardy trees, including the hawthorn, much used for ornamental purposes.

Hence, to move or advance in a feeble, slow, or timorous manner. He was hardly able to crawl about the room. Arbuthnot. The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes. Byron.

To make a prolonged sharp grating or ssqueaking sound, as by the friction of hard substances; as, shoes creak. The creaking locusts with my voice conspire. Dryden. Doors upon their hinges creaked. Tennyson.

o hurt, torment, or afflict; destitute of sympathetic kindness and pity; savage; inhuman; hard-hearted; merciless. Behold a people cometh from the north country; . . . they are cruel and have no mercy. Jer. vi. 22,23.

Hard or crusty; dry baked; as, a crump loaf. [Prov. Eng. & Scot.] Hallivell.

To press or bruise between two hard bodies; to squeeze, so as to destroy the natural shape or integrity of the parts, or to force together into a mass; as, to crush grapes. Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut. Lev. xxii. 24. The ass . . . thrust herself unto the wall, a…

The hard external coat or covering of anything; the hard exterior surface or outer shell; an incrustation; as, a crust of snow. I have known the statute of an emperor quite hid under a crust of dross. Addison. Below this icy crust of conformity, the waters of infidelity lay dark and deep as ever. Prescott.…

The state or quality of having crust or being like crust; hardness.

Having the nature of crust; pertaining to a hard covering; as, a crusty coat; a crusty surface or substance.

Having a sharp end, like the point of a spear; terminating in a hard point; as, a cuspidate leaf.