Search the Dictionary

A small vane or sail, used to keep the large sails of a smock windmill always in the direction of the wind. Clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. Is. xxx. 24.

g for, or interest in, a particular object or class or objects; hence, one who breeds and keeps for sale birds and animals; as, bird fancier, dog fancier, etc.

ing formed in the mind; conception; thought; idea; conceit. How now, my lord ! why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companoins making Shak.

, unstable, or easily moved; immovable; as, to make fast the door. There is an order that keeps things fast. Burke.

t of the face; a lineament. (pl.) The face, the countenance. It is for homely features to keep home. Milton.

To reward for services performed, or to be performed; to recompense; to hire or keep in hire; hence, to bribe. The patient . . . fees the doctor. Dryden. There's not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant feed. Shak.

etive to; as, to feel pleasure; to feel pain. Teach me to feel another's woe. Pope. Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing. Eccl. viii. 5. He best can paint them who shall feel them most. Pope. Mankind have felt their strength and made it felt. Byron.

To keep off; to prevent from entering or hitting; to ward off; to shut out; -- often with off; as, to fend off blows. With fern beneath to fend the bitter cold. Dryden. To fend off a boat or vessel (Naut.), to prevent its running against anything with too much violence.

The act of keeping holiday; cessation from work. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

A dog keeper. [Obs.] Massinger.

y fever; excited; restless; as, the feverish condition of the commercial world. Strive to keep up a frail and feverish bing. Milton. -- Fe"ver*ish*ly, adv. -- Fe"ver*ish*ness, n.

A rack or frame of bars connected by strings, to keep table furniture in place on the cabin table in bad weather. Ham. Nav. Encyc. Fiddle beetle (Zoöl.), a Japanese carabid beetle (Damaster blaptoides); -- so called from the form of the body. -- Fiddle block (Naut.), a long tackle block having two sheaves of different…

trive; to make resistance. To fight shy, to avoid meeting fairly or at close quarters; to keep out of reach.

rally with off. To file with, to follow closely, as one soldier after another in file; to keep pace. My endeavors Have ever come too short of my desires, Yet filed with my abilities. Shak.

stop a vacancy in the hexameter. Dryden. They have six diggers to four fillers, so as to keep the fillers always at work. Mortimer.

Thin; attenuate; keen; as, a fine edge.

Keenness or sharpness; as, the fineness of a needle's point, or of the edge of a blade.

A stroke or blow. [Obs. or R.] Curse on that cross, quoth then the Sarazin, That keeps thy body from the bitter fit. Spenser.

The act of keeping fractured limbs cool by the use of a fan or some other contrivance. Dunglison.

he parts are bolted together. Knight. - Flange rail, a rail with a flange on one side, to keep wheels, etc. from running off. -- Flange turning, the process of forming a flange on a wrought iron plate by bending and hammering it wh