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Light of heart; vivacious; sprightly; flippant; superficial. "Merry and airy." Jer. Taylor.

A cheerful readiness, willingness, or promptitude; joyous activity; briskness; sprightliness; as, the soldiers advanced with alacrity to meet the enemy. I have not that alacrity of spirit, Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have. Shak.

Gay; cheerful; sprightly. [Obs.] Bacon.

Sprightly; lively; brisk. Richardson.

An allegro movement; a quick, sprightly strain or piece.

A poem after the manner of Anacreon; a sprightly little poem in praise of love and wine.

ommon to both angles. -- Alternate angles. See Alternate. -- Angle bar. (a) (Carp.) An upright bar at the angle where two faces of a polygonal or bay window meet. Knight. (b) (Mach.) Same as Angle iron. -- Angle bead (Arch.), a bead worked on or fixed to the angle of any architectural work, esp. for protecting an an…

At another time; then; again. Sometimes he trots, . . . anon he rears upright. Shak. Anon right, at once; right off. [Obs.] Chaucer. -- Ever and anon, now and then; frequently; often. A pouncet box, which ever and anon He gave his nose. Shak.

-- Anticlinal vertebra (Anat.), one of the dorsal vertebræ, which in many animals has an upright spine toward which the spines of the neighboring vertebræ are inclined.

The act of ingrafting a sprig or shoot of one tree into another, without cutting it from the parent stock; -- called, also, inarching and grafting by approach.

An upright beam. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

The short upright pieces between the floor beams and rafters in garrets. See Ashlar, 2.

Slopingly; aslant; declining from an upright direction; sloping. "Set them not upright, but aslope." Bacon.

To set free; to release. [Archaic] Till from her hands the spright assoiled is. Spenser.

Fig.: That which gives, or helps to maintain, uprightness, steadiness, and security. It [piety] is the right ballast of prosperity. Barrow. Ballast engine, a steam engine used in excavating and for digging and raising stones and gravel for ballast. -- Ship in ballast, a ship carring only ballast.

One of the solid upright parts of a parapet in ancient fortifications.

Hence: Morally distorted; not upright. [Poetic] I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel. Shak. A bevel angle, any angle other than one of 90º. -- Bevel wheel, a cogwheel whose working face is oblique to the axis. Knight.

Gay; merry; sprightly; joyous; glad; cheerful; as, a blithe spirit. The blithe sounds of festal music. Prescott. A daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Milton.

An upright wooden or iron post in a boat or on a dock, used in veering or fastening ropes. Bollard timber (Naut.), a timber, also called a knighthead, rising just within the stem in a ship, on either side of the bowsprit, to secure its end.

nly; straight; unbendingly. [He] came bolt up against the heavy dragoon. Thackeray. Bolt upright. (a) Perfectly upright; perpendicular; straight up; unbendingly erect. Addison. (b) On the back at full length. [Obs.] Chaucer.