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A stringed instrument of music resembling the lute or the violin, but larger, and having six strings, three of silk covered with silver wire, and three of catgut, -- played upon with the fingers.

A weapon which throws or propels a missile to a distance; any firearm or instrument for throwing projectiles by the explosion of gunpowder, consisting of a tube or barrel closed at one end, in which the projectile is placed, with an explosive charge behind, which is ignited by various means. Muskets, rifles, carbines,…

ixed inside a rigid case to which is attached a thin flange of metal for supporting the instrument. It is used in studying the dynamics of rotating bodies.

without skill or definite purpose; to notch; to mangle by repeated strokes of a cutting instrument; as, to hack a post. My sword hacked like a handsaw. Shak.

One who, or that which, hacks. Specifically: A cutting instrument for making notches; esp., one used for notching pine trees in collecting turpentine; a hack.

An instrument for registering the velocity of the blood.

An instrument for determining the number of blood corpuscles in a given quantity of blood.

An instrument devised by Hermann, for regulating and measuring the thickness of a layer of blood for spectroscopic examination.

A handle; that part of an instrument or vessel taken into the hand, and by which it is held and used; -- said chiefly of a knife, sword, or dagger; the hilt. This brandish'dagger I'll bury to the haft in her fair breast. Dryden.

nd, between the open position and the first shift, in playing on the violin and kindred instruments. See Shift. -- Half step (Mus.), a semitone; the smallest difference of pitch or interval, used in music. -- Half tide, the time or state of the tide equally distant from ebb and flood. -- Half time, half the ordinary…

An instrument for measuring the forms and angles of salts and crystals; a goniometer.

An instrument for exhibition or illustration of the phenomena of halos, parhelia, and the like.

An instrument for driving nails, beating metals, and the like, consisting of a head, usually of steel or iron, fixed crosswise to a handle. With busy hammers closing rivets up. Shak.

That part of vessels, instruments, etc., which is held in the hand when used or moved, as the haft of a sword, the knob of a door, the bail of a kettle, etc.

A woman who prostitutes her body for hire; a prostitute; a common woman; a strumpet.

A harlot; a strumpet; a baggage. [Obs.] He sups to-night with a harlotry. Shak.

A musical instrument, consisting of a series of hemispherical glasses which, by touching the edges with the dampened finger, give forth the tones.

A small, flat, wind instrument of music, in which the notes are produced by the vibration of free metallic reeds.

An obsolete wind instrument with a keyboard, in which the sound, which resembled the oboe, was produced by the vibration of thin metallic plates, acted upon by blowing through a tube.

A musical instrument, resembling a small organ and especially designed for church music, in which the tones are produced by forcing air by means of a bellows so as to cause the vibration of free metallic reeds. It is now made with one or two keyboards, and has pedals and stops.