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The principal rafters of a roof, especially a pair of rafters taken together. [Obs.]

Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable. After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. Shak. -- Fit"ful*ly, adv. -- Fit"ful*ness, n. The victorius trumpet peal Dies fitfully away. Macaulay.

e United States (bearing six per cent interest), issued in 1862, '64, and '65, redeemable after five and payable in twenty years.

interwoven, supported by stanchions, for drying codfish and other things. You shall also, after they be ripe, neither suffer them to have straw nor fern under them, but lay them either upon some smooth table, boards, or flakes of wands, and they will last the longer. English Husbandman.

kind of low-crowned cap formerly worn by all classes in England, and continued in London after disuse elsewhere; -- hence, a citizen of London. Marston.

d crop-full, out of doors he flings. Milton. I flung closer to his breast, As sword that, after battle, flings to sheath. Mrs. Browning. To fling out, to become ugly and intractable; to utter sneers and insinuations.

r surface are touched, thus seizing insects that light on them. The insects so caught are afterwards digested by a secretion from the upper surface of the leaves.

A point in which the rays of light meet, after being reflected or refrcted, and at which the image is formed; as, the focus of a lens or mirror.

A second growth of grass; aftergrass.

A thin leaf of sheet copper silvered and burnished, and afterwards coated with transparent colors mixed with isinglass; -- employed by jewelers to give color or brilliancy to pastes and inferior stones. Ure.

To go or come after; to move behind in the same path or direction; hence, to go with (a leader, guide, etc.); to accompany; to attend. It waves me forth again; I'll follow it. Shak.

Next after; succeeding; ensuing; as, the assembly was held on the following day.

man's or that man's "folly," and name of the foolish builder is thus kept alive for long after years. Trench.

s in search of food. -- Foraging cap, a forage cap. -- Foraging party, a party sent out after forage.

ired efficacy; valid; of full virtue; not suspended or reversed. "A testament is of force after men are dead." Heb. ix. 17. -- Metabolic force (Physiol.), the influence which causes and controls the metabolism of the body. -- No force, no matter of urgency or consequence; no account; hence, to do no force, to make no…

In the part that precedes or goes first; -- opposed to aft, after, back, behind, etc.

That part of the upper deck of a vessel forward of the foremast, or of the after part of the fore channels.

The milk secreted just before, or directly after, the birth of a child or of the young of an animal; colostrum.

To move heavily and slowly, as a ship after the sails are furled; to work one's way, as one ship in outsailing another; -- used especially in the phrase to forge ahead. Totten. And off she [a ship] forged without a shock. De Quincey.

to which one whole is divided; the quotient of a unit divided by forty; one next in order after the thirty-ninth.