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One earnestly devoted or attached to a religion; a religious zealot. The chief actors on one side were, and were to be, the Puritan religionists. Palfrey. It might be that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodoreligionists, was to be scourged out of the town. Hawthorne.

To repeat often, loudly, or earnestly. To ring a peal, to ring a set of changes on a chime of bells. -- To ring the changes upon. See under Change. -- To ring in or out, to usher, attend on, or celebrate, by the ringing of bells; as, to ring out the old year and ring in the new. Tennyson. -- To ring the bells backwa…

To apply one's self; to undertake earnestly; -- now followed by out. If he sets industriously and sincerely to perform the commands of Christ, he can have no ground of doubting but it shall prove successful to him. Hammond.

To look earnestly at; to gaze at. I will stare him out of his wits. Shak. To stare in the face, to be before the eyes, or to be undeniably evident. "The law . . . stares them in the face whilst they are breaking it." Locke.

Ardent; eager; zealous; earnestly engaged; as, a strong partisan; a strong Whig or Tory. Her mother, ever strong against that match. Shak.

Asking earnestly and submissively; entreating; beseeching; supplicating. The rich grow suppliant, and the poor grow proud. Dryden.

To entreat for; to seek by earnest prayer; to ask for earnestly and humbly; as, to supplicate blessings on Christian efforts to spread the gospel.

Ardently desired or longed for; earnestly coveted. [Obs.] Sir H. Wotton.

Hence, to struggle; to strive earnestly; to contend. Come, wrestle with thy affections. Shak. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. Eph. vi. 12. Difficulties with which he had himself wrestled. M. Arnold.

in with violence; to writhe; to squeeze hard; to pinch; as, to wring clothes in washing. "Earnestly wringing Waverley's hand." Sir W. Scott. "Wring him by the nose." Shak. [His steed] so sweat that men might him wring. Chaucer. The king began to find where his shoe did wring him. Bacon. The priest shall bring it [a dov…