Search the Dictionary

A small boot; a lady's boot.

Small patties.

A small room, esp. if pleasant, or elegantly furnished, to which a lady may retire to be alone, or to receive intimate friends; a lady's (or sometimes a gentleman's) private room. Cowper.

A small room, esp. if pleasant, or elegantly furnished, to which a lady may retire to be alone, or to receive intimate friends; a lady's (or sometimes a gentleman's) private room. Cowper.

A small pair of compasses, one leg of which carries a pencil, or a pen, for drawing circles. Its legs are often connected by a bow- shaped spring, instead of by a joint.

ghty brawned bowers Were wont to rive steel plates and helmets hew. Spenser. Best bower, Small bower. See the Note under Anchor.

ins. -- Bowling green, a level piece of greensward or smooth ground for bowling, as the small park in lower Broadway, New York, where the Dutch of New Amsterdam played this game.

[Obs.] There were many bowssening places, for curing of mad men. . . . If there appeared small amendment he was bowssened again and again. Carew.

A small country house. "A shooting box." Wilson. Tight boxes neatly sashed. Cowper.

A group of decapod Crustacea, including the common crabs, characterized by a small and short abdomen, which is bent up beneath the large cephalo-thorax. [Also spelt Brachyoura.] See Crab, and Illustration in Appendix.

A leaf, usually smaller than the true leaves of a plant, from the axil of which a flower stalk arises.

A thin nail, usually small, with a slight projection at the top on one side instead of a head; also, a small wire nail, with a flat circular head; sometimes, a small, tapering, square-bodied finishing nail, with a countersunk head.

A small red worm or larva, used as bait for small fresh-water fish; -- so called from its red color.

A kind of fox found in Sweden (Vulpes alopex), smaller than the common fox (V. vulgaris), but probably a variety of it.

To pound, beat, rub, or grind small or fine. Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar, . . . yet will not his foolishness depart from him. Prov. xxvii. 22.

To exchange for other money or currency of smaller denomination; as, to break a five dollar bill.

A small water cask. Totten.

The breech mechanism in breech-loading small arms and certain special guns, as automatic and machine guns; --used frequently in referring to the method by which the movable barrels of breech- loading shotguns are locked, unlocked, or rotated to loading position.

A garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs; smallclothes. His jacket was red, and his breeches were blue. Coleridge.

The small arch or bar at right angles to the strings of a violin, guitar, etc., serving of raise them and transmit their vibrations to the body of the instrument.