Search the Dictionary

A wreck; destruction. [Obs., except in a few phrases.] Rack and ruin, destruction; utter ruin. [Colloq.] -- To go to rack, to perish; to be destroyed. [Colloq.] "All goes to rack." Pepys.

two circles. (Geom.) See under Axis. -- Radical pitch, the pitch or tone with which the utterance of a syllable begins. Rush. -- Radical quantity (Alg.), a quantity to which the radical sign is prefixed; specifically, a quantity which is not a perfect power of the degree indicated by the radical sign; a surd. -- Ra…

shred; a tatter; a fragment. Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tossed, And fluttered into rags. Milton. Not having otherwise any rag of legality to cover the shame of their cruelty. Fuller.

To use insolent and reproachful language; to utter reproaches; to scoff; followed by at or against, formerly by on. Shak. And rail at arts he did not understand. Dryden. Lesbia forever on me rails. Swift.

To give vent or utterance to; to utter; to strike up. Soon as the prince appears, they raise a cry. Dryden.

g a rank smell or taste, from chemical change or decomposition; musty; as, rancid oil or butter.

Raised to a high degree; violent; extreme; gross; utter; as, rank heresy. "Rank nonsense." Hare. "I do forgive thy rankest fault." Shak.

Of or pertaining to a natural order of plants (Ranunculaceæ), of which the buttercup is the type, and which includes also the virgin's bower, the monkshood, larkspur, anemone, meadow rue, and peony.

A genus of herbs, mostly with yellow flowers, including crowfoot, buttercups, and the cultivated ranunculi (R. Asiaticus, R. aconitifolius, etc.) in which the flowers are double and of various colors.

rape and renne." Chaucer. All they could rap and rend pilfer. Hudibras. -- To rap out, to utter with sudden violence, as an oath. A judge who rapped out a great oath. Addison.

Uttered or undertaken with too much haste or too little reflection; as, rash words; rash measures.

Harshness of sound; rough utterance; hoarseness; as, the raucity of a trumpet, or of the human voice.

To utter in madness or frenzy; to say wildly; as, to rave nonsense. Young.

ed eagle ray (Stoasodon nàrinari) of the Southern United States and the West Indies. -- Butterfly ray, a short-tailed American sting ray (Pteroplatea Maclura), having very broad pectoral fins. -- Devil ray. See Sea Devil. -- Eagle ray, any large ray of the family Myliobatidæ, or Ætobatidæ. The common European specie…

To go over, as characters or words, and utter aloud, or recite to one's self inaudibly; to take in the sense of, as of language, by interpreting the characters with which it is expressed; to peruse; as, to read a discourse; to read the letters of an alphabet; to read figures; to read the notes of music, or to read musi…

Rashly negligent; utterly careless or heedless. It made the king as reckless as them diligent. Sir P. Sidney.

Any species of a tribe of butterflies (Fugacia) including the common yellow species and the cabbage butterflies. The antennæ are usually red.

a bowsprit so rigged that it can easily be run in or shortened by sliding inboard, as in cutters.

eptance; of no value; worthless. Everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. 1. Sam. xv. 9.

regulating the admission of air to the fuel; also, an arrangement containing dampers or shutters, as in the floor or wall of a room or passage, or in a chimney, for admitting or excluding heated air, or for regulating ventilation.