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imes twelve feet long, through which an arrow or other projectile may be impelled by the force of the breath. It is a weapon much used by certain Indians of America and the West Indies; -- called also blowpipe, and blowtube. See Sumpitan.

To repress or weaken, as any appetite, desire, or power of the mind; to impair the force, keenness, or susceptibility, of; as, to blunt the feelings.

nly with out. Others . . . can not hold, but blurt out, those words which afterward they forced to eat. Hakewill. To blurt at, to speak contemptuously of. [Obs.] Shak.

To utter, or do, with noisy violence; to force by blustering; to bully. He bloweth and blustereth out . . . his abominable blasphemy. Sir T. More. As if therewith he meant to bluster all princes into a perfect obedience to his commands. Fuller.

A nickname for a policeman; -- from Sir Robert Peel, who remodeled the police force. See Peeler. [Slang, Eng.] Dickens.

a spring which gives out very hot water, or water and steam, often ejecting it with much force; a geyser. -- To be at the boiling point, to be very angry. -- To keep the pot boiling, to keep going on actively, as in certain games. [Colloq.]

ough; stormy. The waters swell before a boisterous storm. Shak. The brute and boisterous force of violent men. Milton.

Secure against the explosive force of bombs. -- n.

A binding force or influence; a cause of union; a uniting tie; as, the bonds of fellowship. A people with whom I have no tie but the common bond of mankind. Burke.

A large tropical fish (Orcynus pelamys) allied to the tunny. It is about three feet long, blue above, with four brown stripes on the sides. It is sometimes found on the American coast.

An instrument for regulating the electro-motive force in an alternating-current circuit; -- so called because used to "boost", or raise, the pressure in the circuit.

ht alkaline taste, used as a flux, in soldering metals, making enamels, fixing colors on porcelain, and as a soap. It occurs native in certain mineral springs, and is made from the boric acid of hot springs in Tuscany. It was originally obtained from a lake in Thibet, and was sent to Europe under the name of tincal. Bo…

(a passage) by laborious effort, as in boring; as, to bore one's way through a crowd; to force a narrow and difficult passage through. "What bustling crowds I bored." Gay.

Of or pertaining to the Thracian or the Cimmerian Bosporus. The Alans forced the Bosporian kings to pay them tribute and exterminated the Taurians. Tooke.

A curve, in which a body, starting from a given point, and descending solely by the force of gravity, will reach another given point in a shorter time than it could by any other path. This curve of quickest descent, as it is sometimes called, is, in a vacuum, the same as the cycloid.

tten for effect, to show the range and flexibility of a singer's voice, or the technical force and skill of a performer; virtuoso music. Aria di bravura ( Etym: [It.], a florid air demanding brilliant execution.

To diminish the force of; to lessen the shock of, as a fall or blow. I'll rather leap down first, and break your fall. Dryden.

ny structure or contrivance, as a mole, or a wall at the mouth of a harbor, to break the force of waves, and afford protection from their violence.

reast. Shak. Breast drill, a portable drilling machine, provided with a breastplate, for forcing the drill against the work. -- Breast pang. See Angina pectoris, under Angina. -- To make a clean breast, to disclose the secrets which weigh upon one; to make full confession.

uarter of its circumference, and prevents the escape of the water until it has spent its force upon the wheel. See Breast wheel.