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An extensive overflow or sweeping flood of water; a deluge.

A maidservant who has the care of chambers, making the beds, sweeping, cleaning the rooms, etc.

hich lives in chimneys. (b) In England, the common swallow (Hirundo rustica). -- Chimney sweep, Chimney sweeper, one who cleans chimneys of soot; esp. a boy who climbs the flue, and brushes off the soot.

To render bright, transparent, or undimmed; to free from clouds. He sweeps the skies and clears the cloudy north. Dryden.

Extent; reach; sweep; capacity; sphere; as, the compass of his eye; the compass of imagination. The compass of his argument. Wodsworth.

n of areas (Astron.), the principle that the radius vector drawn from a planet to the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times. -- Conservation of energy, or Conservation of force (Mech.), the principle that the total energy of any material system is a quantity which can neither be increased nor diminished by any ac…

ak. His gifts, his constant ourtship, nothing gained. Dryden. Onward the constant current sweeps. Longfellow.

e, must; If you can't get crumb, you'd best eat crust. Old Song. Crumb brush, a brush for sweeping crumbs from a table. -- To a crum, with great exactness; completely.

sel's floor. -- Dead rising, an elliptical line drawn on the sheer plan to determine the sweep of the floorheads throughout the ship's length. -- Dead-Sea apple. See under Apple. -- Dead set. See under Set. -- Dead shot. (a) An unerring marksman. (b) A shot certain to be made. -- Dead smooth, the finest cut made;…

ve every unnecessary incumbrance in preparation for battle; to prepare for action. -- To sweep the deck (Card Playing), to clear off all the stakes on the table by winning them.

n a printing office, who runs on errands, does dirty work (as washing the ink rollers and sweeping), etc. "Without fearing the printer's devil or the sheriff's officer." Macaulay. -- Tasmanian devil (Zoöl.), a very savage carnivorous marsupial of Tasmania (Dasyurus, or Diabolus, ursinus). -- To play devil with, to mo…

e. Soon after their death, they are disemboweled. Cook. Roaring floods and cataracts that sweep From disemboweled earth the virgin gold. Thomson.

Act of drawing a net; a sweeping the water for fish. Upon the draught of a pond, not one fish was left. Sir M. Hale.

To free from dust; to brush, wipe, or sweep away dust from; as, to dust a table or a floor.

eels, bevel wheels, or belt pulleys, in which an arm, carrying one or more of the wheels, sweeps around a center lying in an axis common to the other wheels.

To search by raking or sweeping. Swift.

against undue exposure to an enemy's direct fire, by means of the fire from other works, sweeping the ground in its front. -- Flank en potence (Mil.), any part of the right or left wing formed at a projecting angle with the line. -- Flank files, the first men on the right, and the last on the left, of a company, bat…

To make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion. Impetuous spread The stream, and smoking flourished o'er his head. Pope.

oris); -- called also green bird, green linnet, green grosbeak, green olf, greeny, and peasweep.

The work belonging to housekeeping; especially, kitchen work, sweeping, scrubbing, bed making, and the like.