Search the Dictionary

dgment upon them; a reviewer. The opininon of the most skillful critics was, that nothing finer [than Goldsmith's "Traveler"] had appeared in verse since the fourth book of the "Dunciad." Macaulay.

One who affects special finery or gives undue attention to dress; a fop; a coxcomb.

A linen (or sometimes cotton) fabric, finer and lighter than canvas, -- used for the lighter sails of vessels, the sacking of beds, and sometimes for men's clothing.

The process of elutriating; a decanting or racking off by means of water, as finer particles from heavier.

The finer portions of ore which go through the meshes, when the ore is sorted by sifting.

- File cutter, a maker of files. -- Second-cut file, a file having teeth of a grade next finer than bastard. -- Single-cut file, a file having only one set of parallel teeth; a float. -- Smooth file, a file having teeth so fine as to make an almost smooth surface.

See Finery.

Not gross; subtile; thin; tenous. The eye standeth in the finer medium and the object in the grosser. Bacon.

The joiner work and other finer work required for the completion of a building, especially of the interior. See Inside finish, and Outside finish.

Showy, but counterfeit; cheap, pretentious, and vulgar; as, flash jewelry; flash finery.

The finely ground meal of wheat, or of any other grain; especially, the finer part of meal separated by bolting; hence, the fine and soft powder of any substance; as, flour of emery; flour of mustard. Flour bolt, in milling, a gauze-covered, revolving, cylindrical frame or reel, for sifting the flour from the refuse co…

The finer refuse part of whale blubber, not wholly deprived of oil. Simmonds.

Hence: Secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance. Fond of gauze and French frippery. Goldsmith. The gauzy frippery of a French translation. Sir W. Scott.

Splendor of appearance; ostentatious finery. [Archaic] Guess the gallantry of our church by this . . . when the desk whereon the priest read was inlaid with plates of silver. Fuller.

An ornament; a piece of worthless finery; a trinket. "An idle gaud." Shak.

Finery; ornaments; ostentatious display. [R.] "Tarnished gaudery." Dryden.

Finery; show; as, the gayety of dress.

Gayety; finery. [R.]

as, millstone grit; -- called also gritrock and gritstone. The name is also applied to a finer sharp-grained sandstone; as, grindstone grit.

A thin, coarse mortar, used for pouring into the joints of masonry and brickwork; also, a finer material, used in finishing the best ceilings. Gwilt.