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To loosen and dress the fiber of (cotton or silk) by beating; to free (fibrous substances) from dust by beating and blowing. Scutching machine, a machine used to scutch cotton, silk, or flax; -- called also batting machine.

To fix; to set firm. From their foundations, loosening to and fro, They plucked the seated hills. Milton.

To make fast; to close or confine effectually; to render incapable of getting loose or escaping; as, to secure a prisoner; to secure a door, or the hatches of a ship.

, true, or reasonable; rational meaning. "He speaks sense." Shak. He raves; his words are loose As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense. Dryden.

rve fibers which convey to a nerve center impulses resulting in sensation; also sometimes loosely employed in the sense of afferent, to indicate nerve fibers which convey impressions of any kind to a nerve center.

A harem; a place for keeping wives or concubines; sometimes, loosely, a place of licentious pleasure; a house of debauchery.

A thin, loosely woven, twilled worsted stuff. In blue shalloon shall Hannibal be clad. Swift.

ttered in intellect; his constitution was shattered; his hopes were shattered. A man of a loose, volatile, and shattered humor. Norris.

Easily breaking into pieces; not compact; loose of texture; brittle; as, shattery spar.

of wool, cotton, silk, or other textile or netted fabric, used, especially by women, as a loose covering for the neck and shoulders. India shawl, a kind of rich shawl made in India from the wool of the Cashmere goat. It is woven in pieces, which are sewed together. -- Shawl goat (Zoöl.), the Cashmere goat.…

A species of hickory (Carya alba) whose outer bark is loose and peeling; a shagbark; also, its nut.

n of; to alter the bearings of; to turn; as, to shift the helm or sails. Carrying the oar loose, [they] shift it hither and thither at pleasure. Sir W. Raleigh.

Round, water-worn, and loose gravel and pebbles, or a collection of roundish stones, such as are common on the seashore and elsewhere.

A kind of wide loose drawers or trousers worn by women in Mohammedan countries.

A loose under-garment for the upper part of the body, made of cotton, linen, or other material; -- formerly used of the under- garment of either sex, now commonly restricted to that worn by men and boys. Several persons in December had nothing over their shoulders but their shirts. Addison. She had her shirts and girdl…

A lot consisting of sixty pieces; -- a term applied in some Baltic ports to loose goods.

s hollow blade, with a handle, used for lifting and throwing earth, coal, grain, or other loose substances. Shovel hat, a broad-brimmed hat, turned up at the sides, and projecting in front like a shovel, - - worn by some clergy of the English Church. [Colloq.] -- Shovelspur (Zoöl.), a flat, horny process on the tarsus…

In a loose sense, any small crustacean, including some amphipods and even certain entomostracans; as, the fairy shrimp, and brine shrimp. See under Fairy, and Brine.

s from iron when hammered; -- applied as a name to various minerals. Calcareous sinter, a loose banded variety of calcite formed by deposition from lime-bearing waters; calcareous tufa; travertine. -- Ceraunian sinter, fulgurite. -- Siliceous sinter, a light cellular or fibrous opal; especially, geyserite (see Geyser…

A small trout or salmon; -- a name used loosely. [Prov. Eng.]