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Fig.: To move from firmness; to weaken the stability of; to cause to waver; to impair the resolution of. When his doctrines grew too strong to be shook by his enemies, they persecuted his reputation. Atterbury. Thy equal fear that my firm faith and love Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced. Milton.…

fagots of blistered steel by repeated heating, rolling, and tilting, to increase its malleability and fineness of texture.

The game of hockey; -- so called because of the liability of the players to receive blows on the shin. Halliwell.

Instability; inconstancy. [Obs.] The vain shittlenesse of an unconstant head. Baret.

Figurative bulk; condition as to rank, ability, character, etc.; as, the office demands a man of larger size. Men of a less size and quality. L'Estrange. The middling or lower size of people. Swift.

he application of the art or science to practical purposes; power to discern and execute; ability to perceive and perform; expertness; aptitude; as, the skill of a mathematician, physician, surgeon, mechanic, etc. Phocion, . . . by his great wisdom and skill at negotiations, diverted Alexander from the conquest of Athe…

able of being readily shifted. The sloop usually carries a centerboard, and depends for stability upon breadth of beam rather than depth of keel. The two types have rapidly approximated since 1880. One radical distinction is that a slop may carry a centerboard. See Cutter, and Illustration in Appendix. Sloop of war, fo…

Envincing little worth or ability; not large-minded; -- sometimes, in reproach, paltry; mean. A true delineation of the smallest man is capable of interesting the reatest man. Carlyle.

-- opposed to openness or hollowness; strength; soundness, -- opposed to weakness or instability; the primary quality or affection of matter by which its particles exclude or resist all others; hardness; massiveness. That which hinders the approach of two bodies when they are moving one toward another, I call solidity…

The tendency to, or capability of suffering, spasm.

The quality or state of being stable, or firmly established; stability.

standard of property and correctness of speech. Swift. A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Burke.

ron carbide. Steel, unlike wrought iron, can be tempered, and retains magnetism. Its malleability decreases, and fusibility increases, with an increase in carbon.

y or value for money. Sterling was the known and approved standard in England, in all probability, from the beginning of King Henry the Second's reign. S. M. Leake.

The quality or state of being strong; ability to do or to bear; capacity for exertion or endurance, whether physical, intellectual, or moral; force; vigor; power; as, strength of body or of the arm; strength of mind, of memory, or of judgment. All his [Samson's] strength in his hairs were. Chaucer. Thou must outlive Th…

Having passive physical power; having ability to bear or endure; firm; hale; sound; robust; as, a strong constitution; strong health.

act of one who stutters; -- restricted by some physiologists to defective speech due to inability to form the proper sounds, the breathing being normal, as distinguished from stammering.

Qualification for any purpose; ability; capacity. A substitute or most allowed sufficiency. Shak. I am not so confident of my own sufficiency as not willingly to admit the counsel of others. Eikon Basilike.

Possessing adequate talents or accomplishments; of competent power or ability; qualified; fit. Who is sufficient for these things 2 Cor. ii. 16.

One who is above, or surpasses, another in rank, station, office, age, ability, or merit; one who surpasses in what is desirable; as Addison has no superior as a writer of pure English.