Search the Dictionary

The weight of goods carried in a boat or a ship.

o top hamper.] All the ships of the fleet . . . were so encumbered with tophamper, so overweighted in proportion to their draught of water, that they could bear but little canvas, even with smooth seas and light and favorable winds. Motley.

ity a horizontal bar or needle, upon which the forces act. -- Torsion scale, a scale for weighing in which the fulcra of the levers or beams are strained wires or strips acting by torsion.

ary engine used in the Middle Ages for throwing stones, etc. It acted by means of a great weight fastened to the short arm of a lever, which, being let fall, raised the end of the long arm with great velocity, hurling stones with much force.

e to purchasers, for waste or refuse matter, of four pounds on every 104 pounds of suttle weight, or weight after the tare deducted. M'Culloch.

s found on the coral reefs of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. One species (T. gigas) often weighs four or five hundred pounds, and is sometimes used for baptismal fonts. Called also paw shell, and fountain shell.

To act or talk without seriousness, gravity, weight, or dignity; to act or talk with levity; to indulge in light or trivial amusements. They trifle, and they beat the air about nothing which toucheth us. Hooker. To trifle with, to play the fool with; to treat without respect or seriousness; to mock; as, to trifle with…

To adjust, as a ship, by arranging the cargo, or disposing the weight of persons or goods, so equally on each side of the center and at each end, that she shall sit well on the water and sail well; as, to trim a ship, or a boat.

To release, let fall, or see free, as a weight or compressed spring, as by removing a latch or detent.

A machine with three pulleys which act together for raising great weights. Brande & C.

A toll or duty paid for weighing wool; also, the act of weighing wool. [Obs.] Nares.

An officer in London whose duty was to weigh wool. [Obs.]

A form of weighing machine for heavy wares, consisting of two horizontal bars crossing each other, beaked at the extremities, and supported by a wooden pillar. It is now mostly disused. [Scot.] Jamieson. Trone stone, a weight equivalent to nineteen and a half pounds. [Scot.] -- Trone weight, a weight formerly used in S…

Troy weight. Troy weight, the weight which gold and silver, jewels, and the like, are weighed. It was so named from Troyes, in France, where it was first adopted in Europe. The troy ounce is supposed to have been brought from Cairo during the crusades. In this weight the pound is divided into 12 ounces, the ounce into…

See Troy ounce, under Troy weight, above, and under Ounce.

Exactly; justly; precisely; accurately; as, to estimate truly the weight of evidence.

tris hecateia) of the family Cirrhitidæ, native of Tasmania and New Zealand. It sometimes weighs as much as fifty or sixty pounds, and is highly esteemed as a food fish.

The act of weighing. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

to, for the purpose of determining the quality; to examine; to prove; to test; as, to try weights or measures by a standard; to try a man's opinions. Let the end try the man. Shak.

A weight of 2,240 pounds. See Ton. [R.]