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To make difficulty; to be unwilling. [Obs.] If he coyed To hear Cominius speak, I 'll keep at home. Shak.

A wadded covering for a teakettle or other vessel to keep the contents hot.

A frame to keep the bedclothes from conntact with the person.

Iron insruments with sharp points, worn on the shoes to assist in gaining or keeping a foothold.

d; a weak-hearted, spiritless fellow. See Recreant, n. King Henry. Is it fit this soldier keep his oath Fluellen.He is a craven and a villain else. Shak.

A keeper of a low lodging house where sailors and emigrants are entrapped and fleeced.

A cloth to be laid under a dining table to receive falling fragments, and keep the carpet or floor clean. [Written also crumcloth.]

A leather loop, passing under a horse's tail, and buckled to the saddle to keep it from slipping forwards.

potpie; -- also called dumpling. Th' impenetrable crust thy teeth defies. Dryden. He that keeps nor crust nor crumb. Shak. They . . . made the crust for the venison pasty. Macualay.

One who has the care and superintendence of anything, as of a museum; a custodian; a keeper.

as with a curb; to bend to one's will; to subject; to subdue; to restrain; to confine; to keep in check. Part wield their arms, part curb the foaming steed. Milton. Where pinching want must curbthy warm desires. Prior.

To prepare for preservation or permanent keeping; to preserve, as by drying, salting, etc.; as, to cure beef or fish; to cure hay.

One who has care or custody, as of some public building; a keeper or superintendent.

A keeping or guarding; care, watch, inspection, for keeping, preservation, or security. A fleet of thirty ships for the custody of the narrow seas. Bacon.

A keeper; a custodian; a superintendent. [Obs.] Custos rotulorum (r Etym: [LL., keeper of the rolls] (Eng. Law), the principal justice of the peace in a county, who is also keeper of the rolls and records of the sessions of the peace.

narrower end deeper than a sloop of the same length, and depends for stability on a deep keel, often heavily weighted with lead.

A hood over the end of a wagon wheel hub to keep dirt away from the axle.

o followed Homer, and wrote merely on the Trojan war and its heroes; -- so called because keeping within the circle of a singe subject. Also, any series or coterie of poets writing on one subject. Milman.

ated by a point in the plane of a circle when the circle is rolled along a straight line, keeping always in the same plane.

A man who keeps or takes care of a dairy.