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oroughly; scrutinizing; penetrating; trying; as, a searching discourse; a searching eye. "Piercing, searching, biting, cold." Dickens. -- Search"ing*ly, adv. -- Search"ing*ness, n.

ste or smell, pungent, acid, sour, as ammonia has a sharp taste and odor; to the hearing, piercing, shrill, as a sharp sound or voice; to the eye, instantaneously brilliant, dazzling, as a sharp flash.

To render more shrill or piercing. Inclosures not only preserve sound, but increase and sharpen it. Bacon.

To penetrate, as a missile; to dart with a piercing sensation; as, shooting pains. Thy words shoot through my heart. Addison.

Acute; sharp; piercing; having or emitting a sharp, piercing tone or sound; -- said a sound, or of that which produces a sound. Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confused. Shak. Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high. Byron.

Sharp; piercing; cutting; -- applied to the wind. [Prov. Eng.]

To penetrate with a pointed instrument; to pierce; to stab; hence, to kill by piercing; as, to stick a beast. And sticked him with bodkins anon. Chaucer. It was a shame . . . to stick him under the other gentleman's arm while he was redding the fray. Sir W. Scott.

defense, especially when connected with a poison gland, and adapted to inflict a wound by piercing; as the caudal sting of a scorpion. The sting of a bee or wasp is a modified ovipositor. The caudal sting, or spine, of a sting ray is a modified dorsal fin ray. The term is sometimes applied to the fang of a serpent. See…

Piercing, or capable of piercing, with a sting; inflicting acute pain as if with a sting, goad, or pointed weapon; pungent; biting; as, stinging cold; a stinging rebuke. -- Sting"ing*ly, adv. Stinging cell. (Zoöl.) Same as Lasso cell, under Lasso.

A local sharp pain; an acute pain, like the piercing of a needle; as, a stitch in the side. He was taken with a cold and with stitches, which was, indeed, a pleurisy. Bp. Burnet.

Acute; piercing; searching. The slow disease and subtile pain. Prior.

To draw, or cause to flow, by piercing. Shak. He has been tapping his liquors. Addison.

Boring; piercing; -- applied to certain kinds of pain, especially to those of locomotor ataxia.

Piercing; sharp; thrilling. [Obs.] "His thrillant spear." Spenser.

in any combat or movement resembling that of horsemen tilting with lances. He tilts With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast. Shak. Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast. Shak. But in this tournament can no man tilt. Tennyson. The fleet, swift tilting, o'er the Pope.

A shell longer than a deck-piercing shell, with thinner walls and a larger cavity for the bursting charge, which consists of about 130 pounds of high explosive. It has no soft cap, and is intended to effect its damage by the powerful explosion which follows on slight resistance. It is used chiefly in 12-inch mortars.…

Rough; pricking; piercing. [R.] "Helping all urchin blasts." Milton.