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Bitter; piercing; acrimonious; cutting; stinging; severe; as, keen satire or sarcasm. Good father cardinal, cry thou amen To my keen curses. Shak.

Piercing; seeming to pierce or stab; as, lancinating pains (i.e., severe, darting pains).

The quality or state of being penetrant; power of entering or piercing; penetrating power of quality; as, the penetrancy of subtile effluvia.

Having the power of entering, piercing, or pervading; sharp; subtile; penetrative; as, a penetrating odor.

The act or process of penetrating, piercing, or entering; also, the act of mentally penetrating into, or comprehending, anything difficult. And to each in ward part, With gentle penetration, though unseen, Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep. Milton. A penetration into the difficulties of algebra. Watts.…

Tending to penetrate; of a penetrating quality; piercing; as, the penetrative sun. His look became keen and penetrative. Hawthorne.

to pierce through with a pointed instrument; to make a hole or holes through by boring or piercing; to pierce or penetrate the surface of. Bacon.

The act of perforating, or of boring or piercing through. Bacon.

Piercing. [Obs.] Spenser.

The act of punching or piercing with a pointed instrument; as, pertusion of a vein. [R.] Arbuthnot.

An organ stop, with a high, piercing tone.

ted at the middle; a hammer with a flattened end for driving wedges and a pointed end for piercing as it strikes. Shak.

The act of piercing or stabbing.

Pricking; piercing; sharp; pungent. "His poignant spear." Spenser. "Poynaunt sauce." Chaucer.

That which pricks or pierces; the sharp end of anything, esp. the sharp end of a piercing instrument, as a needle or a pin.

The act of piercing or puncturing with a sharp point. "There is that speaketh like the prickings of a sword." Prov. xii. 18 [1583].

r by priming. -- Priming wire, a pointed wire used to penetrate the vent of a piece, for piercing the cartridge before priming.

That quality of appearance which pleases the eye; beauty; comeliness; grace; loveliness. Piercing our heartes with thy pulchritude. Court of Love.

The quality or state of being pungent or piercing; keenness; sharpness; piquancy; as, the pungency of ammonia. "The pungency of menaces." Hammond.

A heavy steel or iron beak attached to the prow of a steam war vessel for piercing or cutting down the vessel of an enemy; also, a vessel carrying such a beak.