Search the Dictionary

Any machine or instrument for cutting or shearing, resembling in its action a guillotine.

The greater shearwater or hagdon. See Hagdon.

The hagdon or shearwater.

One of several species of sea birds of the genus Puffinus; esp., P. major, the greater shearwarter, and P. Stricklandi, the black hagdon or sooty shearwater; -- called also hagdown, haglin, and hag. See Shearwater.

Anything bulky or unwieldly. Shak. Shear hulk, an old ship fitted with an apparatus to fix or take out the masts of a ship. -- The hulks, old or dismasted ships, formerly used as prisons. [Eng.] Dickens.

arent film of gelatin for copying or reproducing; papier glacé. -- Ice petrel (Zoöl.), a shearwater (Puffinus gelidus) of the Antarctic seas, abundant among floating ice. -- Ice pick, a sharp instrument for breaking ice into small pieces. -- Ice pilot, a pilot who has charge of a vessel where the course is obstructe…

To make timid or fearful; to inspire of affect with fear; to deter, as by threats; to dishearten; to abash. Now guilt, once harbored in the conscious breast, Intimidates the brave, degrades the great. Johnson.

ve turning; sometimes holding by friction alone, but more frequently by its resistance to shearing, being usually embedded partly in the shaft and partly in the crank, pulley, etc.

doing something; skill; facility; dexterity. The fellow . . . has not the knack with his shears. B. Jonson. The dean was famous in his time, And had a kind of knack at rhyme. Swift.

A feast at the time of shearing lambs.

A kind of shears used in cropping woolen cloth. Lewis hole, a hole wider at the bottom than at the mouth, into which a lewis is fitted. De Foe.

domestic cats having a rudimentary tail, containing only about three vertebrae. -- Manx shearwater (Zoöl.), an oceanic bird (Puffinus anglorum, or P. puffinus), called also Manx petrel, Manx puffin. It was formerly abundant in the Isle of Man.

To shear. [Obs.] Stow.

To remove the poll or head of; hence, to remove the top or end of; to clip; to lop; to shear; as, to poll the head; to poll a tree. When he [Absalom] pollled his head. 2 Sam. xiv. 26. His death did so grieve them that they polled themselves; they clipped off their horse and mule's hairs. Sir T. North.…

One of a family of oceanic birds (Procellaridæ) including the petrels, fulmars, and shearwaters. They are often seen in great abundance in stormy weather.

runing hook, or Pruning knife, cutting instrument used in pruning trees, etc. -- Pruning shears, shears for pruning trees, vines, etc.

urage into; to revive; to reinvigorate; as, to reanimate a drowned person; to reanimate disheartened troops; to reanimate languid spirits. Glanvill.

by rotating devices which take the place of reciprocating buckets or pistons. -- Rotary shears, shears, as for cloth, metal, etc., in which revolving sharp-edged or sharp-cornered wheels do the cutting. -- Rotary valve, a valve acting by continuous or partial rotation, as in the four-way cock.

To cut with scissors or shears; to prepare with the aid of scissors. Massinger.

A cutting instrument resembling shears, but smaller, consisting of two cutting blades with handles, movable on a pin in the center, by which they are held together. Often called a pair of scissors. [Formerly written also cisors, cizars, and scissars.] Scissors grinder (Zoöl.), the European goatsucker. [Prov. Eng.]…