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els smooth. Dryden. To feel after, to search for; to seek to find; to seek as a person groping in the dark. "If haply they might feel after him, and find him." Acts xvii. 27. - To feel of, to examine by touching.

A plant which produces only that kind of reproductive organs which are capable of developing into fruit after impregnation or fertilization; a pistillate plant.

A screen to prevent coals or sparks of an open fire from escaping to the floor.

The act of keeping holiday; cessation from work. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

The iron used for trying the melted glass to see if is fit to work, and for shaping the rings at the mouths of bottles.

carrying slotted spikes, or fingers, through which the vibratory knives of mowing and reaping machines play. -- Finger board (Mus.), the part of a stringed instrument against which the fingers press the strings to vary the tone; the keyboard of a piano, organ, etc.; manual. -- Finger bowl or glass, a bowl or glass t…

A species of creeping bent grass (Agrostis alba); -- called also fiorin grass.

To search by raking or sweeping. Swift.

for catching fish; including the bag net, casting net, drag net, landing net, seine, shrimping net, trawl, etc. -- Fishing rod, a long slender rod, to which is attached the line for angling. -- Fishing smack, a sloop or other small vessel used in sea fishing. -- Fishing tackle, apparatus used in fishing, as hook, li…

of the cerebrum. -- Fissure needle (Surg.), a spiral needle for catching together the gaping lips of wounds. Knight. -- Fissure of rolando (Anat.), the furrow separating the frontal from the parietal lobe in the cerebrum. -- Fissure of Sylvius (Anat.), a deep cerebral fissure separating the frontal from the tempora…

The act of keeping fractured limbs cool by the use of a fan or some other contrivance. Dunglison.

Yielding to pressure for want of firmness and stiffness; soft and weak; limber; lax; drooping; flabby; as, a flaccid muscle; flaccid flesh. Religious profession . . . has become flacced. I. Taylor. -- Flac"cid*ly, adv. -- Flac"cid*ness, n.

A beating or flogging; a whipping; a scourging. Garth.

inst undue exposure to an enemy's direct fire, by means of the fire from other works, sweeping the ground in its front. -- Flank en potence (Mil.), any part of the right or left wing formed at a projecting angle with the line. -- Flank files, the first men on the right, and the last on the left, of a company, battali…

ax comb, a hatchel, hackle, or heckle. -- Flax cotton, the fiber of flax, reduced by steeping in bicarbinate of soda and acidulated liquids, and prepared for bleaching and spinning like cotton. Knight. -- Flax dresser, one who breaks and swingles flax, or prepares it for the spinner. -- Flax mill, a mill or factory…

s Pulex, of the order Aphaniptera. Fleas are destitute of wings, but have the power of leaping energetically. The bite is poisonous to most persons. The human flea (Pulex irritans), abundant in Europe, is rare in America, where the dog flea (P. canis) takes its place. See Aphaniptera, and Dog flea. See Illustration in…

A jumping plant louse of the family Psyllidæ, of many species. That of the pear tree is Psylla pyri.

A two-handled, convex, blunt-edged knife, for scraping hides; a fleshing knife.

A single-cut file for smoothing; a tool used by shoemakers for rasping off pegs inside a shoe.

To flock to; to crowd. [Obs.] Good fellows, trooping, flocked me so. Taylor (1609).