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To make a low, prolonged sound, like that of a bee in flight; to drone; to murmur; to buzz; as, a top hums. P. Fletcher. Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep. Pope.

Reciting in a musical prolonged tone; intonating, or singing of the opening phrase of a plain-chant, psalm, or canticle by a single voice, as of a priest. See Intone, v. t.

To utter with a musical or prolonged note or tone; to chant; as, to intone the church service.

, or complaint; a doleful story; a dolorous tirade; -- generally used satirically. He has prolonged his complaint into an endless jeremiad. Lamb.

A prolonged wail for a deceased person. Cf. Coranach. [Ireland] Froude.

rm snake of the genus Xyphorhynchus, from Madagascar. It is brownish red, and its hose is prolonged in the form of a sharp blade.

One of the straight horizontal and parallel prolonged strokes on and between which the notes are placed.

Prolonged, or relatively more prolonged, in utterance; -- said of vowels and syllables. See Short, a., 13, and Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 22, 30.

[Obs.] Such diligence as the most part of our lucrative lawyers do use, in deferring and prolonging of matters and actions from term to term. Latimer.

The art of prolonging life.

ocial excursion party that sojourns several days on the shore or in some retired place; a prolonged picnic. [Southern U. S.] Bartlett.

in the treatment of disease; a remedial agent; a remedy; physic. By medicine, life may be prolonged. Shak.

A piano having a mechanical attachment which enables the player to prolong the notes at will.

To make a low prolonged sound of grief or pain, whether articulate or not; to groan softly and continuously. Unpitied and unheard, where misery moans. Thomson. Let there bechance him pitiful mischances, To make him moan. Shak.

A morbid condition produced by the excessive or prolonged use of morphine.

A genus of ranunculaceous plants (Myosurus), in which the prolonged receptacle is covered with imbricating achenes, and so resembles the tail of a mouse.

l, much less do lying lips a prince. Prov. xvii. 7. Henceforth I fly not death, nor would prolong Life much. Milton. All left the world much as they found it. Sir W. Temple.

A genus of climbing plants found in India, Malaya, etc., which have the leaves prolonged into a kind of stout tendril terminating in a pitcherlike appendage, whence the plants are often called pitcher plants and monkey-cups. There are about thirty species, of which the best known is Nepenthes distillatoria. See Pitcher…

), a kind of motion or progression in which one part ascends or descends, while the other prolongs or repeats the same tone, as in the accompanying example. -- Oblique muscle (Anat.), a muscle acting in a direction oblique to the mesial plane of the body, or to the associated muscles; -- applied especially to two musc…

To draw out; to extend; to lengthen; to prolong; as, to produce a man's life to threescore. Sir T. Browne.