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Metaphorically used for what is transitory. Surely the people is grass. Is. xl. 7.

Any marine fish of the genus Macrurus, in which the body and tail taper to a point; they mostly inhabit the deep sea; -- called also onion fish, and rat-tail fish.

of cloth inserted in a garment, for the purpose of strengthening some part or giving it a tapering enlargement. Seam and gusset and band. Hood.

A dealer in small wares, as tapes, pins, needles, and thread; also, a hatter. [Obs.] The haberdasher heapeth wealth by hats. Gascoigne.

carriage; to wear out in common service; to make trite or commonplace; as, a hackneyed metaphor or quotation. Had I lavish of my presence been, So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men. Shak.

That which is hung as lining or drapery for the walls of a room, as tapestry, paper, etc., or to cover or drape a door or window; -- used chiefly in the plural. Nor purple hangings clothe the palace walls. Dryden.

A toy instrument of strips of glass or metal hung on two tapes, and struck with hammers.

A clasp, especially a metal strap permanently fast at one end to a staple or pin, while the other passes over a staple, and is fastened by a padlock or a pin; also, a metallic hook for fastening a door.

Fountain; source. The headspring of our belief. Stapleton.

or small advantages in buying and selling; to haggle. A person accustomed to higgle about taps. Jeffry. To truck and higgle for a private good. Emerson.

A threaded and fluted hardened steel cutter, resembling a tap, used in a lathe for forming the teeth of screw chasers, worm wheels, etc.

Careful; wary. [Obs.] Stapleton.

An incurved, tapering and pointed appendage found in the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias).

ating kindness and generosity to guests and strangers; as, hospitable rites. To where you taper cheers the vale With hospitable ray. Goldsmith.

but unconnected with the tissues. It is usually formed by parasitic worms, esp. by larval tapeworms, as Echinococcus and Coenurus. See these words in the Vocabulary. Hydatid of Morgagni (Anat.), one of the small pedunculated bodies found between the testicle and the head of the epididymis, and supposed to be a remnant…

yond the fact; exceeding the truth; as, an hyperbolical expression. "This hyperbolical epitaph." Fuller. Hyperbolic functions (Math.), certain functions which have relations to the hyperbola corresponding to those which sines, cosines, tangents, etc., have to the circle; and hence, called hyperbolic sines, hyperbolic c…

an object when thought of in all its essential elements or constituents; the necessary metaphysical or constituent attributes and relations, when conceived in the abstract.

In a ill manner; badly; weakly. How ill this taper burns! Shak. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Goldsmith.

in that form must be true because the original proposition is true. -- Illative sense (Metaph.), the faculty of the mind by which it apprehends the conditions and determines upon the correctness of inferences.

Persons in the early church who had received baptism; in which ceremony a lighted taper was given them, as a symbol of the spiritual illumination they has received by that sacrament.