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Soft; not violent or rough; not strong, loud, or disturbing; easy; soothing; pacific; as, a gentle touch; a gentle gallop. "Gentle music." Sir J. Davies. O sleep! it is a gentle thing. Coleridge. The gentle craft, the art or trade of shoemaking.

- Wall gillyflower, the wallflower (Cheiranthus Cheiri). -- Water gillyflower, the water violet.

To move gently and smoothly; to pass along without noise, violence, or apparent effort; to pass rapidly and easily, or with a smooth, silent motion, as a river in its channel, a bird in the air, a skater over ice. The river glideth at his own sweet will. Wordsworth.

A color mixed of white, and red, or a gray violet. [Written also gredaline, grizelin.] Dryden.

To keep watch over, in order to prevent escape or restrain from acts of violence, or the like.

Exposure to any legal penalty or forfeiture. A ship incurs guilt by the violation of a blockade. Kent.

A stringed instrument of music resembling the lute or the violin, but larger, and having six strings, three of silk covered with silver wire, and three of catgut, -- played upon with the fingers.

Violent blasts of wind.

To issue with violence and rapidity, as a fluid; to rush forth as a fluid from confinement; to flow copiously. He smote the rock that the waters gushed out. Ps ixxviii 20. A sea of blood gushed from the gaping wound. Spenser.

Rushing forth with violence, as a fluid; flowing copiously; as, gushing waters. "Gushing blood." Milton.

A sudden squall; a violent blast of wind; a sudden and brief rushing or driving of the wind. Snow, and hail, stormy gust and flaw. Milton.

A plant, Globularia Alypum, a violent purgative, found in Africa.

a position of the hand, between the open position and the first shift, in playing on the violin and kindred instruments. See Shift. -- Half step (Mus.), a semitone; the smallest difference of pitch or interval, used in music. -- Half tide, the time or state of the tide equally distant from ebb and flood. -- Half ti…

With tension or strain of the powers; violently; with force; tempestuously; vehemently; vigorously; energetically; as, to press, to blow, to rain hard; hence, rapidly; as, to run hard.

Having violent contrasts of color, or of light and shade; lacking in harmony.

to the action of carbon under long-continued pressure at a very high heat, and then to a violent chilling, as by a spray of cold water. This process gives an armor plate a thick surface of extreme hardness supported by material gradually decreasing in hardness to the unaltered soft steel at the back.…

A pulling with force; a violent pull.

ill or passion; ungovernable. All the talent required is to be hot, to be heady, -- to be violent on one side or the other. Sir W. Temple.

A species of violet (Viola tricolor); -- called also pansy.

A violent action unintermitted; a single effort; a single course in a race that consists of two or more courses; as, he won two heats out of three. Many causes . . . for refreshment betwixt the heats. Dryden. [He] struck off at one heat the matchless tale of "Tam o'Shanter." J. C. Shairp.