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A thong of leather, or a long cord, by which a falconer holds his hawk, or a courser his dog. Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash. Shak.

To beat, as with a thong of leather. [Obs. or Colloq.] G. Eliot.

A thong by which a dog is led; a leash. Halliwell.

A little tongue or thong of leather; a lacing for belts. Crabb.

Disorder or untidiness resulting from scattered rubbish, or from thongs lying about uncared for; as, a room in a state of litter.

Having the form of a thong or strap; ligulate.

, and wolf (book). In connection with the other vowels it forms several digraphs and diphthongs. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 107-129.

a diphthong, employed in the Latin language, and thence in the English language, as the representative of the Greek diphthong oe. In many words in common use, e alone stands instead of oe. Classicists prefer to write the diphthong oe separate in Latin words.

A rawhide whip plaited with two thongs of buffalo hide T. Roosevelt.

To stretch out; to draw out into thongs, threads, or filaments.

d that the short vowels are generally wide, the long narrow, besides being generally diphthongic as well. Hence, originally short vowels can be lengthened and yet kept quite distinct from the original longs. H. Sweet. In short, in few words; in brief; briefly. -- The long and the short, the whole; a brief summing up.…

To make a sharp noise by striking; to crack; as, to smack a whip. "She smacks the silken thong." Young.

A slight frame of wood three or four feet long and about one third as wide, with thongs or cords stretched across it, and having a support and holder for the foot; -- used by persons for walking on soft snow.

A contraction of syllables by suppressing some vowel or diphthong at the end of a word, before another vowel or diphthong; as, th' army, for the army. [Written also synaloepha.]

nd spear thrower. One end of the stick receives the butt of the spear, as upon a hook or thong, and the other end is grasped with the hand, which also holds the spear, toward the middle, above it with the finger and thumb, the effect being to bring the place of support nearer the center of the spear, and practically le…

e with tone unmixed and undimmed by obstruction, such sounds, namely, the vowels and diphthongs, being so called by Dr. James Rush (1833) " from their forming the purest and most plastic material of intonation."

ation so as to have but one sound, or to form but one syllable, as -ieu in adieu; a triphthong.

ally, a purely vocal element of speech, unmodified except by resonance; a vowel or a diphthong; a tonic element; a tonic; -- distinguished from a subvocal, and a nonvocal.

ally a consonant, but sometimes it is a vowel, forming the second element of certain diphthongs, as in few, how. It takes its written form and its name from the repetition of a V, this being the original form of the Roman capital letter which we call U. Etymologically it is most related to v and u. See V, and U. Some o…

A leather thong. [Prov. Eng. & Colloq. U. S.]