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An implement for braying and spreading ink in hand printing.

To spread. [Obs.] Ray.

The spread of a river into a sheet of water; a flooded fen. [Local, Eng.] Southey.

Having horns spreading widely.

So as to scatter or be scattered in all directions; so as to spread widely, as seed from the hand in sowing, or news from the press.

To touch in passing, or to pass lightly over, as with a brush. Some spread their sailes, some with strong oars sweep The waters smooth, and brush the buxom wave. Fairfax. Brushed with the kiss of rustling wings. Milton.

swelling or filling out; hence, to grow large. A slender poet must have time to grow, And spread and burnish as his brothers do. Dryden. My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell. Herbert.

Thick and spreading, like a bush. "Bushy eyebrows." Irving.

To cover or spread with butter. I know what's what. I know on which side My bread is buttered. Ford.

To whisper; to communicate, as tales, in an under tone; to spread, as report, by whispers, or secretly. I will buzz abroad such prophecies That Edward shall be fearful of his life. Shak.

A machine for spreading out cotton cloths to prepare them for printing.

A corroding or sloughing ulcer; esp. a spreading gangrenous ulcer or collection of ulcers in or about the mouth; -- called also water canker, canker of the mouth, and noma.

issues, and marked constitutional depression. It differs from a boil in size, tendency to spread, and the absence of a central core, and is frequently fatal. It is also called anthrax.

To cover with, or as with, a carpet; to spread with carpets; to furnish with a carpet or carpets. Carpeted temples in fashionable squares. E. Everett.

To spread by, or as by, infecting; to communicate. Does the sedition catch from man to man Addison. To catch at, to attempt to seize; to be egger to get or use. "[To] catch at all opportunities of subverting the state." Addison. -- To catch up with, to come up with; to overtake.

f a consistence intermediate between that of an ointment and a plaster, so that it can be spread upon cloth without the use of heat, but does not melt when applied to the skin.

A printing process of engraving on a surface of wax spread on a steel plate, for electrotyping.

Flat ledges of heavy plank bolted edgewise to the outside of a vessel, to increase the spread of the shrouds and carry them clear of the bulwarks. Channel bar, Channel iron (Arch.), an iron bar or beam having a section resembling a flat gutter or channel. -- Channel bill (Zoöl.), a very large Australian cucko (Scythro…

The backbone or spine of an animal; the back. "And chine with rising bristles roughly spread." Dryden.

formation. Syn. -- circulate, circularize, distribute, disseminate, propagate, broadcast, spread, diffuse, disperse. [WordNet 1.5]