Search the Dictionary

To spread abroad, or different ways; to spread apart; to open; as, the sun dispreads his beams. Spenser.

Starting asunder; bursting and opening with an elastic force; dehiscing explosively; as, a dissilient pericarp.

e the particles of a concrete substance. Before Wyclif's death in 1384, John of Gaunt had openly dissociated himself from the reformer. A. W. Ward.

contrary, dissuaded her with great ardor: and I stood neuter. Goldsmith. War, therefore, open or concealed, alike My voice dissuades. Milton.

Opening during the day, and closing at night; -- said of flowers or leaves.

One of the muscles which open the shell of brachiopods; a cardinal muscle. See Illust. of Brachiopoda.

To be separated; to part; to open; to go asunder. Milton. The Indo-Germanic family divides into three groups. J. Peile.

A game much like hockey, played in an open field; also, the, bent stick for playing the game. [Local, Eng.] Halliwell.

and soiled by careless or long-continued usage; -- said of a book. Statute books before unopened, not dog-eared. Ld. Mansfield.

An opening in the wall of a house or of an apartment, by which to go in and out; an entrance way. To the same end, men several paths may tread, As many doors into one temple lead. Denham.

A sofa, open carriage, or the like, so constructed that the occupants sit back to back.

A small ovoid or cylindrical roil or pledget of lint, for keeping a sore, wound, etc., open; a tent.

Divided into two; acting two parts, one openly and the other secretly; equivocal; deceitful; insincere. With a double heart do they speak. Ps. xii. 2.

Open; artless; undisguised; absolute; unmixed; as, downright atheism. The downright impossibilities charged upon it. South. Gloomy fancies which in her amounted to downright insanity. Prescott. -- Down"right`ly, adv. -- Down"right`ness, n.

to go on lingeringly. The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun. Byron. Long, open panegyric drags at best. Gay.

ut the staves of the ark. 2 Chron. v. 9. Draw thee waters for the siege. Nahum iii. 14. I opened the tumor by the point of a lancet without drawing one drop of blood. Wiseman.

An openmouthed bar at the end of a car, which receives a coupling link and pin by which the car is drawn. It is usually provided with a spring to give elasticity to the connection between the cars of a train.

A sliding box or receptacle in a case, which is opened by pulling or drawing out, and closed by pushing in. (b) pl.

A door or platform opening downward; a trap door; that part of the gallows on which a culprit stands when he is to be hanged; hence, the gallows itself.

A low, four-wheeled, open carriage, used in Russia, consisting of a kind of long, narrow bench, on which the passengers ride as on a saddle, with their feet reaching nearly to the ground. Other kinds of vehicles are now so called, esp. a kind of victoria drawn by one or two horses, and used as a public carriage in Germ…