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; polite; affable; complaisant. A patient and courteous bearing. Prescott. His behavior toward his people is grave and courteous. Fuller.

Covering; shelter; defence; hiding. Protected by walls or other like coverture. Woodward. Beatrice, who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Shak.

Cowardly. The Lady Powis . . . patted him with her fan, and called him a cowhearted fellow. R. North.

Timorous; fearful; cowardly. [R.] Shak.

ider (Zoöl.), one of a group of spiders (Laterigradæ); -- called because they can run backwards or sideways like a crab. -- Crab tree, the tree that bears crab applies. -- Crab wood, a light cabinet wood obtained in Guiana, which takes a high polish. McElrath. -- To catch a crab (Naut.), a phrase used of a rower: (a…

A kind of gambling game consisting in pitching coins to or towards the ceiling of a room so that they shall fall as near as possible to a certain crack in the floor. [Gamblers' Cant, U. S.]

into two pieces lengthwise, to enable it to pass a narrow place, the two parts being afterward united and rehooped.

to reach forward with head and neck, in order to see better; as, a hunter cranes forward before taking a leap. Beaconsfield. Thackeray. The passengers eagerly craning forward over the bulwarks. Howells.

Cowardly; fainthearted; spiritless. "His craven heart." Shak. The poor craven bridegroom said never a word. Sir. W. Scott. In craven fear of the sarcasm of Dorset. Macualay.

To sketch, as with a crayon; to sketch or plan. He soon afterwards composed that discourse, conformably to the plan which he had crayoned out. Malone.

t), a short line at each end of the bowling crease and at right angles to it, extending toward the bowler. -- Popping crease (Cricket),, a line drawn in front of the wicket, four feet distant from it, parallel to the bowling crease and at least as long as the latter. J. H. Walsh (Encyc. of Rural Sports).…

A shrub (Covillea mexicana) found in desert regions from Colorado to California and southward through Mexico. It has yellow flowers and very resinous foliage with a strong odor of creosote.

Increase; enlargement. [Obs.] And toward the moon's attractive crescence bend. H. Brooke.

The emblem of the increasing moon with horns directed upward, when used in a coat of arms; -- often used as a mark of cadency to distinguish a second son and his descendants.

The ring which turns inward and condenses the flame of a lamp. Knight.

lt to move the part. To those also that, with a crick or cramp, have thei necks drawn backward. Holland.

Weak; inconsistent; contradictory. [R.] The evidance is crimp; the witnesses swear backward and forward, and contradict themselves. Arbuthnot.

to be recovery or death; sometimes, also, a striking change of symptoms attended by an outward manifestation, as by an eruption or sweat. Till some safe crisis authorize their skill. Dryden.

Phaer. Their shoes and pattens are snouted, and piked more than a finger long, crooking upwards. Camden.

Not straightforward; deviating from rectitude; distorted from the right. They are a perverse and crooked generation. Deut. xxxii. 5.