Search the Dictionary

A small piece of cloth worn by children over the breast, to protect the clothes.

An anvil ending in a beak or point (orig. in two beaks); also, the beak or horn itself.

as a wish, a greeting, a threat, or defiance, etc.; as, to bid one welcome; to bid good morning, farewell, etc. Neither bid him God speed. 2. John 10. He bids defiance to the gaping crowd. Granrille.

tallic ware made in India. The material is a composition of zinc, tin, and lead, in which ornaments of gold and silver are inlaid or damascened. [Spelt also bidry, bidree, bedery, beder.]

A handbarrow or portable frame on which a corpse is placed or borne to the grave.

A child's cap; a hood, or something worn on the head. An old woman's biggin for a nightcap. Massinger.

A corner, bend, or angle; a hollow; as, the bight of a horse's knee; the bight of an elbow.

A woman's ornament; habiliment. [Obs.]

A weevil or curculio of various species, as the corn weevil. See Curculio.

An ornament in Norman work, resembling a billet of wood either square or round.

A box, frame, crib, or inclosed place, used as a receptacle for any commodity; as, a corn bin; a wine bin; a coal bin.

A heap or pile; as, a bing of wood. "Potato bings." Burns. "A bing of corn." Surrey. [Obs. or Dial. Eng. & Scot.]

d kill small birds. -- Bird tick (Zoöl.), a dipterous insect parasitic upon birds (genus Ornithomyia, and allies), usually winged.

A papilionaceous plant, the Ornithopus, having a curved, cylindrical pod tipped with a short, clawlike point. Bird's-foot trefoil. (Bot.) (a) A genus of plants (Lotus) with clawlike pods. L. corniculatas, with yellow flowers, is very common in Great Britain.

A coarse kind of thick woolen cloth, worn by the poor in the Middle Ages; also, a woolen cap or hood worn over the shoulders or over the head.

The act or fact of coming into life, or of being born; -- generally applied to human beings; as, the birth of a son.

The day in which any person is born; day of origin or commencement. Those barbarous ages past, succeeded next The birthday of invention. Cowper.

The night in which a person is born; the anniversary of that night in succeeding years. The angelic song in Bethlehem field, On thy birthnight, that sung thee Savior born. Milton.

The town, city, or country, where a person is born; place of origin or birth, in its more general sense. "The birthplace of valor." Burns.

or civil liberty under a free constitution; esp. the rights or inheritance of the first born. Lest there be any . . . profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. Heb. xii. 16.