Search the Dictionary

able piece which closes the breech of a breech-loading firearm, and resists the backward force of the discharge. It is withdrawn for the insertion of a cartridge, and closed again before the gun is fired.

To make brown by scorching slightly; as, to brown meat or flour.

The force of a blow; shock; collision. "And heavy brunt of cannon ball." Hudibras. It is instantly and irrecoverably scattered by our first brunt with some real affair of common life. I. Taylor.

at the trumpet, sometimes keyed; formerly much used in military bands, very rarely in the orchestra; now superseded by the cornet; -- called also the Kent bugle.

terial substance; dimensions; mass; size; as, an ox or ship of great bulk. Against these forces there were prepared near one hundred ships; not so great of bulk indeed, but of a more nimble motion, and more serviceable. Bacon.

Capable of resisting the force of a bullet. Bullet tree. See Bully tree. -- Bullet wood, the wood of the bullet tree.

Hence: A department of public business requiring a force of clerks; the body of officials in a department who labor under the direction of a chief.

nge destructively some property or properties of, by undue exposure to fire or heat; to scorch; to scald; to blister; to singe; to char; to sear; as, to burn steel in forging; to burn one's face in the sun; the sun burns the grass.

Consumed with, or as with, fire; scorched or dried, as with fire or heat; baked or hardened in the fire or the sun. Burnt ear, a black, powdery fungus which destroys grain. See Smut. -- Burnt offering, something offered and burnt on an altar, as an atonement for sin; a sacrifice. The offerings of the Jews were a clean…

any deep or concealed place; to hide. Sir, this vermin of court reporters, when they are forced into day upon one point, are sure to burrow in another. Burke. Burrowing owl (Zoöl.), a small owl of the western part of North America (Speotyto cunicularia), which lives in holes, often in company with the prairie dog.…

To fly apart or in pieces; of break open; to yield to force or pressure, especially to a sudden and violent exertion of force, or to pressure from within; to explode; as, the boiler had burst; the buds will burst in spring. From the egg that soon Bursting with kindly rupture, forth disclosed Their callow young. Milton.…

ing assassin; one who pretends to be a peaceful citizen, but secretly harasses a hostile force or its sympathizers. [U.S.] Farrow.

part of King James's translators of the Bible to express the conjunctive and adversative force of the Greek But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; . . . the lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him. Luke xii. 45, 46. But if, unless. [Obs.] Chaucer. But this I r…

parate pieces, without having them overlap. See Weld. -- Full butt, headfirst with full force. [Colloq.] "The corporal . . . ran full butt at the lieutenant." Marryat.

ct or agency of; as, a city is destroyed by fire; profit is made by commerce; to take by force.

An ornamental casing for a flowerpot, of porcelain, metal, paper, etc.

e in three-four time, resembing the bolero. [Sometimes in English spelled cachuca (.] The orchestra plays the cachucha. Logfellow.

top but open at the bottom, and resting upon the ground under water. The pressure of air forced into the caisson keeps the water out. Men and materials are admitted to the interior through an air lock. See Lock.

One who computes or reckons: one who estimates or considers the force and effect of causes, with a view to form a correct estimate of the effects. Ambition is no exact calculator. Burke.

tion in the edge of a metal plate, as along a seam in a steam boiler or an iron ship, to force the edge of the upper plate hard against the lower and so fill the crevice.