Search the Dictionary

A device for grasping or holding anything; a brake to stop a wheel.

eel worked by hand; esp., one the rim of which serves as the handle by which a valve, car brake, or other part is adjusted.

or, an accumulator for hydraulic machinery of any kind. See Accumulator, 2. -- Hydraulic brake, a cataract. See Cataract, 3. -- Hydraulic cement, a cement or mortar made of hydraulic lime, which will harden under water. -- Hydraulic elevator, a lift operated by the weight or pressure of water. -- Hydraulic jack. Se…

A continuous marginal covering of sporangia, in certain ferns, as in the common brake, or the cup-shaped processes of the filmy ferns.

In pieces; in parts or fragments. "On which it piecemeal brake." Chapman. The beasts will tear thee piecemeal. Tennyson.

ove over or through; as, to range the fields. Teach him to range the ditch, and force the brake. Gay.

as, to rouse a deer or other animal of the chase. Like wild boars late roused out of the brakes. Spenser. Rouse the fleet hart, and cheer the opening hound. Pope.

The part of a railroad car brake which presses upon the wheel to retard its motion.

A kind of brake or shoe for a wagon wheel.

hought this staff, mine office badge in court, Was broke in twain. Shak. All his officers brake their staves; but at their return new staves were delivered unto them. Hayward.

ess. At once they start, advancing in a line. Dryden. At intervals some bird from out the brakes Starts into voice a moment, then is still. Byron.

stumbled, by some inadvertency, upon Livia in a bath. Dryden. Forth as she waddled in the brake, A gray goose stumbled on a snake. C. Smart.

ich each measure is divided into three equal parts. -- Triple valve, in an automatic air brake for railroad cars, the valve under each car, by means of which the brake is controlled by a change of pressure in the air pipe leading from the locomotive.

r steam, etc.; as, a vacuum of 26 inches of mercury, or 13 pounds per square inch. Vacuum brake, a kind of continuous brake operated by exhausting the air from some appliance under each car, and so causing the pressure of the atmosphere to apply the brakes. -- Vacuum pan (Technol.), a kind of large closed metallic ret…

; to thrash; to make with whacks. [Colloq.] Rodsmen were whackingtheir way through willow brakes. G. W. Cable.

ion of circumstances, motives, etc. -- Balance wheel. See in the Vocab. -- Bevel wheel, Brake wheel, Cam wheel, Fifth wheel, Overshot wheel, Spinning wheel, etc. See under Bevel, Brake, etc. -- Core wheel. (Mach.) (a) A mortise gear. (b) A wheel having a rim perforated to receive wooden cogs; the skeleton of a morti…