Search the Dictionary

or, to secure the stock in place. Check nut, Jam nut, Lock nut, a nut which is screwed up tightly against another nut on the same bolt or screw, in order to prevent accidental unscrewing of the first nut. -- Nut buoy. See under Buoy. -- Nut coal, screened coal of a size smaller than stove coal and larger than pea coa…

To wind too tightly, as a spring, or too far, as a hoisting rope on a drum.

achine parcels yarn, wool, etc. To parcel a rope (Naut.), to wind strips of tarred canvas tightly arround it. Totten. -- To parcel a seam (Naut.), to cover it with a strip of tarred canvas.

cured in its own juices, so as to be very dark colored, usually black. It is marketed in tightly wrapped rolls called carottes.

below a horizontal line or plane; as, a line or cable supported by its ends sags, though tightly drawn; the floor of a room sags; hence, to lean, give way, or settle from a vertical position; as, a building may sag one way or another; a door sags on its hinges.

To wind spun yarn, or the like, tightly around (a rope or cable, etc.) so as to protect it from chafing or from the weather. See under Serving. To serve an attachment or a writ of attachment (Law), to levy it on the person or goods by seizure, or to seize. -- To serve an execution (Law), to levy it on a lands, goods,…

elf in a state of enmity or opposition to. -- To set one's teeth, to press them together tightly. -- To set on foot, to set going; to put in motion; to start. -- To set out. (a) To assign; to allot; to mark off; to limit; as, to set out the share of each proprietor or heir of an estate; to set out the widow's thirds…

one end, used in stowing cotton bales, and similar kinds of cargo which need to be packed tightly.

A swelling or other disease in a plant, occasioned by a ligature fastened tightly about it.

Girded or tucked up; bound; drawn tightly together. His habit fit for speed succinct. Milton.

To bind as with a bandage; to bind or warp tightly with clothes; to swathe; -- used esp. of infants; as, to swaddle a baby. They swaddled me up in my nightgown with long pieces of linen. Addison.

To castrate, as a ram, by binding the testicles tightly with a string, so that they mortify and slough off. [Prov. Eng.]

Tight; stretched; not slack; -- said esp. of a rope that is tightly strained.

d from macadam road by its firm foundation of large stones with fragments of stone wedged tightly, in the interstices; as, telford pavement, road, etc.

Stretched tightly; strained to stiffness; rigid; not lax; as, a tense fiber. The temples were sunk, her forehead was tense, and a fatal paleness was upon her. Goldsmith. -- Tense"ly, adv. -- Tense"ness, n.

Tightly; nimbly. [Obs.] "I have seen him trip it tithly." Beau. & Fl.

A stick with a hole in one end through which passes a loop, which can be drawn tightly over the upper lip or an ear of a horse. By twisting the stick the compression is made sufficiently painful to keep the animal quiet during a slight surgical operation. J. H. Walsh.