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To talk idly, carelessly, or with undue rapidity; to jabber; to prate. To tame a shrew, and charm her chattering tongue. Shak.

The act or habit of talking idly or rapidly, or of making inarticulate sounds; the sounds so made; noise made by the collision of the teeth; chatter.

he cheese form assumed by a woman's dress when she stoops after extending the skirts by a rapid gyration. De Quincey. Thackeray. Cheese cake, a cake made of or filled with, a composition of soft curds, sugar, and butter. Prior. -- Cheese fly (Zoöl.), a black dipterous insect (Piophila casei) of which the larvæ or magg…

An iron mold or portion of a mold, serving to cool rapidly, and so to harden, the surface of molten iron brought in contact with it. Raymond.

hort distance (usually 2½ to 3 inches) to the rear of the muzzle, in order to prevent the rapid dispersion of the shot.

s to life, esp. the one commonly called Asiatic cholera. Asiatic cholera, a malignant and rapidly fatal disease, originating in Asia and frequently epidemic in the more filthy sections of other lands, to which the germ or specific poison may have been carried. It is characterized by diarrhea, rice- water evacuations, v…

cts of light (depending upon the persistence of vision and mixture of colors) by means of rapidly rotating disks variously colored.

lantern and kinetoscope features, for projecting on a screen a series of pictures, moved rapidly (25 to 50 a second) and intermittently before an objective lens, and producing by persistence of vision the illusion of continuous motion; a moving-picture machine; also, any of several other machines or devices producing…

tarantula and the wolf spiders (Lycosidae) and their allies, which capture their prey by rapidly running and jumping. See Wolf spider.

To utter words rapidly and continually, or with abruptness; to let the tongue run.

Rapid, noisy talk; babble; chatter. "Hold still thy clatter." Towneley Myst. (15 th Cent. ). Throw by your clatter And handle the matter. B. Jonson

To acquire rapidly, as money; to make. Tenants cannot coin rent just at quarter day. Locke.

Causing rapid waste or exhaustion; melting; as, collequative sweats.

Vocal music colored, as it were, by florid ornaments, runs, or rapid passages.

To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink. [Obs.] The artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, and to connive with either eye. Spectator.

Occuring in steady and rapid succession; very frequent; often repeated. The eye is deligh by a continental succession of small landscapes. W. Irwing. Continual proportionals (Math.), quantities in continued proportion. Brande & C.

Opt.), the theory enunciated by Sir Isaac Newton, that light consists in the emission and rapid progression of minute particles or corpuscles. The theory is now generally rejected, and supplanted by the undulatory theory.

or less violent; a stroke of policy. -- Coup d'oeil (k. Etym: [F.] (a) A single view; a rapid glance of the eye; a comprehensive view of a scene; as much as can be seen at one view. (b) The general effect of a picture. (c) (Mil.) The faculty or the act of comprehending at a glance the weakness or strength of a milita…

To make slight cracks; to make small, sharp, sudden noises, rapidly or frequently repeated; to crepitate; as, burning thorns crackle. The unknown ice that crackles underneath them. Dryden.

To make a series of small, sharp, rapidly repeated explosions or sounds, as salt in fire; to crackle; to snap.