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To view or treat with contempt, as mean and despicable; to reject with disdain; to despise; to scorn. Thy pompous delicacies I contemn. Milton. One who contemned divine and human laws. Dryden.

Worthy of contempt; deserving of scorn or disdain; mean; vile; despicable. Milton. The arguments of tyranny are ascontemptible as its force is dreadful. Burke.

n iron block, usually bolted to a ship's deck, for controlling the running out of a chain cable. The links of the cable tend to drop into hollows in the block, and thus hold fast until disengaged.

A room for cookery; a kitchen; the galley or caboose of a ship. Sir W. Raleigh.

ormed. They are often very erroneously called coral insects. -- Coral fish. See in the Vocabulary. -- Coral reefs (Phys. Geog.), reefs, often of great extent, made up chiefly of fragments of corals, coral sands, and the solid limestone resulting from their consolidation. They are classed as fringing reefs, when they…

Milton. O great in action and in council wise. Pope. Aulic council. See under Aulic. -- Cabinet council. See under Cabinet. -- City council, the legislative branch of a city government, usually consisting of a board of aldermen and common council, but sometimes otherwise constituted. -- Common council. See under Co…

of Jacob Num. xxiii. 10. In a journey of forty miles, Avaux counted only three miserable cabins. Macaulay.

to secure one who has given bond for another. -- Counter brace. See Counter brace, in Vocabulary. -- Counter deed (Law), a secret writing which destroys, invalidates, or alters, a public deed. -- Counter distinction, contradistinction. [Obs.] -- Counter drain, a drain at the foot of the embankment of a canal or wat…

Capable of being countermanded; revocable. Bacon.

ways like a crab. -- Crab tree, the tree that bears crab applies. -- Crab wood, a light cabinet wood obtained in Guiana, which takes a high polish. McElrath. -- To catch a crab (Naut.), a phrase used of a rower: (a) when he fails to raise his oar clear of the water; (b) when he misses the water altogether in making…

A cramp iron or cramp ring; a chape, as of a scabbard. [Written also crampit and crampette.]

A person full of crotchets; one given to fantastic or impracticable projects; one whose judgment is perverted in respect to a particular matter. [Colloq.]

A cupboard, sideboard, or cabinet, particularly one intended for the display of rich vessels or plate, and consisting chiefly of open shelves for that purpose.

To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.

o cage; to cramp. If only the vital energy be not cribbed or cramped. I. Taylor. Now I am cabin'd, cribbed, confined. Shak.

Cross bedding (Geol.), oblique lamination of horizontal beds, -- Cross bill. See in the Vocabulary. -- Cross bitt. Same as Crosspiece. -- Cross bond, a form of bricklaying, in which the joints of one stretcher course come midway between those of the stretcher courses above and below, a course of headers and stretcher…

A beam laid across the bitts, to which the cable is fastened when riding at anchor.

The bights formed by the several turns of a cable. Totten.

To bring forth; -- said of animals, or in contempt, of persons. "Cubb'd in a cabin." Dryden.

A small cabin: also, the galley or kitchen of a vessel.