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Slang, U.S.] -- Shooting star. (a) (Astron.) A starlike, luminous meteor, that, appearing suddenly, darts quickly across some portion of the sky, and then as suddenly disappears, leaving sometimes, for a few seconds, a luminous train, - - called also falling star. Shooting stars are small cosmical bodies which encounte…

To utter a sudden and loud outcry, as in joy, triumph, or exultation, or to attract attention, to animate soldiers, etc. Shouting of the men and women eke. Chaucer. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for Shak. To shout at, to utter shouts at; to deride or revile with shouts.

utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry, as do some birds and beasts; to scream, as in a sudden fright, in horror or anguish. It was the owl that shrieked. Shak. At this she shrieked aloud; the mournful train Echoed her grief. Dryden.

he act shrinking; shrinkage; contraction; also, recoil; withdrawal. Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink, That I had less to praise. Leigh Hunt.

To cause to move suddenly; to give a sudden start to; to shove. [Obs. or Prov.Eng.] Ash.

To start suddenly aside through fright or suspicion; -- said especially of horses.

The state of being siderated, or planet-struck; esp., blast in plants; also, a sudden and apparently causeless stroke of disease, as in apoplexy or paralysis. [Obs.] Ray.

To come or swing against something, or to shut, with sudden force so as to produce a shock and noise; as, a door or shutter slams.

With a sudden and violent blow; hence, quickly; instantly; directly. [Colloq.] "The railroad cars drive slap into the city." Thackeray.

An instrument for indicating and recording shocks to railway cars occasioned by sudden stopping.

y to slipping. Totten. -- Slip stopper (Naut.), an arrangement for letting go the anchor suddenly.

To depart; to disappear suddenly. [Slang]

To fall or sink suddenly through or in, when walking on a surface, as on thawing snow or ice, partly frozen ground, a bog, etc., not strong enough to bear the person. The latter walk on a bottomless quag, into which unawares they may slump. Barrow.

A quick, sharp noise, as of the lips when suddenly separated, or of a whip.

To break up, or to pieces suddenly, as the result of collision or pressure.

To bite or seize suddenly, especially with the teeth. He, by playing too often at the mouth of death, has been snapped by it at last. South.

To attempt to seize something suddenly; to catch; -- often with at; as, to snatch at a rope.

A sudden and violent ejection of air with an audible sound, chiefly through the nose.

To cut off the nip or neb of, or to cut off at once with shears or scissors; to clip off suddenly; to nip; hence, to break off; to snatch away. Curbed and snipped in my younger years by fear of my parents from those vicious excrescences to which that age was subject. Fuller. The captain seldom ordered anything out of t…

or pretentious person; to slight designedly. To snub a cable or rope (Naut.), to check it suddenly in running out. Totten.