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To touch; to feel with the hand; to use or hold with the hand. Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh. Luke xxiv. 39. About his altar, handling holy things. Milton.

A child's play, one child guessing in which closed hand the other holds some small object, winning the object if right and forfeiting an equivalent if wrong; hence, forfeit. Piers Plowman.

To hold or bear in a suspended or inclined manner or position instead of erect; to droop; as, he hung his head in shame. Cowslips wan that hang the pensive head. Milton. To hang down, to let fall below the proper position; to bend down; to decline; as, to hang down the head, or, elliptically, to hang the head. -- To h…

Adapted for sustaining a hanging object; as, the hanging post of a gate, the post which holds the hinges. Hanging compass, a compass suspended so that the card may be read from beneath. -- Hanging garden, a garden sustained at an artificial elevation by any means, as by the terraces at Babylon. -- Hanging indentation…

Hold; influence. When the devil hath got such a hank over him. Bp. Sanderson.

One who provides lodgings; especially, the officer of the English royal household who formerly preceded the court when traveling, to provide and prepare lodgings. Fuller.

A firearm with match holder, trigger, and tumbler, made in the second half of the 15th century. the barrel was about forty inches long. A form of the harquebus was subsequently called arquebus with matchlock.

steel hull, large hatchways, and coal transporters, for coaling war vessels from its own hold or from other colliers.

To hold in possession or control; to own; as, he has a farm.

A possessor; a holder. Shak.

A small board, with a handle on the under side, to hold mortar. Hawk boy, an attendant on a plasterer to supply him with mortar.

f of a frankpledge, tithing, or decennary, consisting of ten families; -- called also borsholder, boroughhead, boroughholder, and sometimes tithingman. See Borsholder. [Eng.] Blackstone.

The part of a lathe that holds the revolving spindle and its attachments; -- also called poppet head, the opposite corresponding part being called a tailstock.

his sense. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. Shak. When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven. D. Webster.

The condition of being high; elevated position. Behold the height of the stars, how high they are! Job xxii. 12.

imp. & p. p. of Hold.

To seize; to lay hold on; to catch; to get. [Obs.] Piers Plowman. Spenser. This cursed Jew him hente and held him fast. Chaucer. But all that he might of his friendes hente On bookes and on learning he it spente. Chaucer.

One who holds to a heresy; one who believes some doctrine contrary to the established faith or prevailing religion. A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject. Titus iii. 10.

A proprietor or landholder in a parish. [Scot.]

Holding heterodox opinions, or doctrines not orthodox; heretical; -- said of persons. Macaulay. -- Het"er*o*dox`ly, adv. -- Het"er*o*dox`ness, n.