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Anything used to buoy up whatever is liable to sink; an inflated bag or pillow used by persons learning to swim; a life preserver. This reform bill . . . had been used as a float by the conservative ministry. J. P. Peters.

Flushed, inflated.

An inflated ball to be kicked in sport, usually made in India rubber, or a bladder incased in Leather. Waller.

An inflated style of writing; a kind of writing in which high- sounding words are used,' above the dignity of the thoughts or subject; bombast. Claudius . . . has run his description into the most wretched fustian. Addison.

Full of gas; like gas. Hence: [Colloq.] Inflated; full of boastful or insincere talk.

nd floor. -- Ground cherry. (Bot.) (a) A genus (Physalis) of herbaceous plants having an inflated calyx for a seed pod: esp., the strawberry tomato (P. Alkekengi). See Alkekengl. (b) A European shrub (Prunus Chamæcerasus), with small, very acid fruit. -- Ground cuckoo. (Zoöl.) See Chaparral cock. -- Ground cypress.…

Inflated, as with conceit.

Turgid; extravagant; bombastic; inflated; as, high-flown language. M. Arnold.

Inflated; boastful.

That may be inflated.

In a manner tending to inflate.

The act or process of inflating, or the state of being inflated, as with air or gas; distention; expansion; enlargement. Boyle.

The literary style of Dr. Samuel Johnson, or one formed in imitation of it; an inflated, stilted, or pompous style, affecting classical words. E. Everett.

Pertaining to or resembling Dr. Johnson or his style; pompous; inflated.

Inflated with wind. Dryden.

group of simple marine organisms, usually classed as the lowest of the sponges. They have inflated hollow bodies.

A fife; also, a rude kind of oboe or a bagpipe with an inflated skin for reservoir.

plectognath fish having the body covered with spines which become erect when the body is inflated. See Diodon, and Globefish. -- Porcupine grass (Bot.), a grass (Stipa spartea) with grains bearing a stout twisted awn, which, by coiling and uncoiling through changes in moisture, propels the sharp-pointed and barbellat…

To swell with air; to be dilated or inflated. Boyle.

Any plectognath fish which inflates its body, as the species of Tetrodon and Diodon; -- called also blower, puff-fish, swellfish, and globefish.