Search the Dictionary

To restore health; to effect a cure. Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear, Is able with the change to kill and cure. Shak.

Having a sharp end, like the point of a spear; terminating in a hard point; as, a cuspidate leaf.

A spear set as a prize in running. [Obs.] Chaucer.

A light lance; a short spear; a half pike; also, a demilancer.

To free from what is vulgar, common, or narrow. Shakespeare and Plutarch's "Lives" are very devulgarizing books. E. A. Abbott.

ield; roving; digressive; desultory. "Discursive notices." De Quincey. The power he [Shakespeare] delights to show is not intense, but discursive. Hazlitt. A man rather tacit than discursive. Carlyle.

A spear bearer; a statue of a man holding a spear or in the attitude of a spear bearer. Several important sculptures of this subject existed in antiquity, copies of which remain to us.

To fall or be depressed; to lower; as, the point of the spear dropped a little.

n editor or in a certain manner; as, a good edition of Chaucer; Chalmers' edition of Shakespeare.

A genus of extinct Cretaceous fishes; -- so named from their spear-shaped teeth. They were allied to the pike (Esox).

reads with expression; her performance on the piano has expression. The imitators of Shakespeare, fixing their attention on his wonderful power of expression, have directed their imitation to this. M. Arnold.

Empty; frivolous. [A Shakespearean word only once used.] Such exsufflicate and blown surmises. Shak. (Oth. iii. 3, 182).

Parting; valedictory; final; as, a farewell discourse; his farewell bow. Leans in his spear to take his farewell view. Tickell. Farewell rock (Mining), the Millstone grit; -- so called because no coal is found worth working below this stratum. It is used for hearths of furnaces, having power to resist intense heat. Ure…

To set close; to fix in rest, as a spear. Spenser.

oker. Fiery cross, a cross constructed of two firebrands, and pitched upon the point of a spear; formerly in Scotland borne by a runner as a signal for the clan to take up arms. Sir W. Scott.

A spear with barbed prongs used for harpooning fish. Knight.

A fishing spear. [Obs.] Sandys.

Small pieces or splinters; fragments. The tough ash spear, so stout and true, Into a thousand flinders flew. Sir W. Scott.

(Archæol.), tools, etc., employed by men before the use of metals, such as axes, arrows, spears, knives, wedges, etc., which were commonly made of flint, but also of granite, jade, jasper, and other hard stones. -- Flint mill. (a) (Pottery) A mill in which flints are ground. (b) (Mining) An obsolete appliance for lig…

To thrust with a sword or spear; to lunge. [Obs.] He stroke, he soused, he foynd, he hewed, he lashed. Spenser. They lash, they foin, they pass, they strive to bore Their corselets, and the thinnest parts explore. Dryden.