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A crossbow, consisting of a steel bow set in a shaft of wood, furnished with a string and a trigger, and a mechanical device for bending the bow. It served to throw arrows, darts, bullets, etc. [Written also arbalet and arblast.] Fosbroke.

a long tapering tail of many vertebræ with feathers along each side, and jaws armed with teeth, with other reptilian characteristics.

Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb. Those arduous pats they trod. Pope.

In a row. [Obs.] "All her teeth arew." Spenser.

of an instrument or machine, projecting from a trunk, axis, or fulcrum; as, the arm of a steelyard.

With gaunt or slender legs. "An armgaunt steed." Shak.

Steel or iron covering, whether of ships or forts, protecting them from the fire of artillery. Coat armor, the escutcheon of a person or family, with its several charges and other furniture, as mantling, crest, supporters, motto, etc. -- Submarine, a water-tight dress or covering for a diver. See under Submarine.…

Covered with defensive plates of metal, as a ship of war; steel-clad. This day will be launched . . . the first armor-plated steam frigate in the possession of Great Britain. Times (Dec. 29, 1860).

arrying a large coal supply, and more or less protected from the enemy's shot by iron or steel armor. There is no distinct and accepted classification distinguishing armored and protected cruisers from each other, except that the first have more or heavier armor than the second.

ng army, a permanent army of professional soldiers, as distinguished from militia or volunteers.

hysical properties, but in its chemical relations ranking with the nonmetals. It is of a steel-gray color and brilliant luster, though usually dull from tarnish. It is very brittle, and sublimes at 356º Fahrenheit. It is sometimes found native, but usually combined with silver, cobalt, nickel, iron, antimony, or sulphu…

rets, sitting on a broad receptacle, which, with the fleshy base of the scales, is much esteemed as an article of food.

ppendage. Articles of Confederation, the compact which was first made by the original thirteen States of the United States. They were adopted March 1, 1781, and remained the supreme law until March, 1789. -- Articles of impeachment, an instrument which, in cases of impeachment, performs the same office which an indict…

ecause sufficient to render the executor or administrator liable to the creditors and legatees, so far as such goods or estate may extend. Story. Blackstone.

Resemblance of sound. "The disagreeable assonance of Steevens.

Genteel irony; a polite and ingenious manner of deriding another.

A genus of fishes, some of which were eighteen or twenty feet long, found in a fossil state in the Old Red Sandstone. Hugh Miller.

be in waiting; -- often followed by on or upon. He was required to attend upon the committee. Clarendon.

That which attracts, as a magnet. The motion of the steel to its attrahent. Glanvill.

An instrument which, placed against the teeth, conveys sound to the auditory nerve and enables the deaf to hear more or less distinctly; a dentiphone.