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A narrow opening resulting from a split or crack or the separation of a junction; a cleft; a fissure; a rent. The mouse, Behind the moldering wainscot, shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about. Tennyson.

ections of a court, or who gives public notice by loud proclamation; as, a town-crier. He openeth his mouth like a crier. Ecclus. xx. 15.

That part of a bird, or the feathers, surrounding the cloacal opening; the under tail coverts.

cus) which alights upon the crocodile and devours its insect parasites, even entering its open mouth (according to reliable writers) in pursuit of files, etc.; -- called also Nile bird. It is the trochilos of ancient writers. -- Crocodile tears, false or affected tears; hypocritical sorrow; -- derived from the fiction…

An open-air game in which two or more players endeavor to drive wooden balls, by means of mallets, through a series of hoops or arches set in the ground according to some pattern.

he footstalk when ripe and expels its seeds and juice with considerable force through the opening thus made. See Elaterium. -- Star cucumber,a climbing weed (Sicyos angulatus) with prickly fruit.

A blow; esp.,, a blow with the open hand; a box; a slap. Snatcheth his sword, and fiercely to him flies; Who well it wards, and quitten cuff with cuff. Spenser. Many a bitter kick and cuff. Hudibras.

Any bag-shaped or tubular cavity, vessel, or organ, open only at one end.

ssemblage of three or more pieces of timber, or a metal member, forming a frame around an opening, and serving to maintain the integrity of that opening; also, a ring of stone serving a similar purpose, as at the eye of a dome.

An opening made with an edged instrument; a cleft; a gash; a slash; a wound made by cutting; as, a sword cut.

ed by a string to their girdles); one who steals from the person; a pickpocket To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cutpurse. Shak.

the centrifugal or determinate type, differing from a corymb chiefly in the order of the opening of the blossoms.

A pouch or sac without opening, usually membranous and containing morbid matter, which is accidentally developed in one of the natural cavaties or in the substance of an organ.

The act or practice of opening cysts; esp., the operation of cutting into the bladder, as for the extraction of a calculus.

To condemn as bad or displeasing, by open expression, as by denuciation, hissing, hooting, etc. You are not so arrant a critic as to damn them [the works of modern poets] . . . without hearing. Pope. Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer. Pope.

The state of being damned; condemnation; openly expressed disapprobation.

First opening or expansion; first appearance; beginning; rise. "The dawn of time." Thomson. These tender circumstances diffuse a dawn of serenity over the soul. Pope.

t the post office to which it was directed, is then sent to the general post office to be opened. (b) That which has lost its force or authority; as, the law has become a dead letter. -- Dead-letter office, a department of the general post office where dead letters are examined and disposed of. -- Dead level, a term…

A kind of latch whose bolt may be so locked by a detent that it can not be opened from the inside by the handle, or from the outside by the latch key. Knight.

A strong shutter, made to fit open ports and keep out water in a storm.