Search the Dictionary

A tool with an indented head for shaping the head of a rivet. Knight.

auses a third to fall, etc.; the process can be repeated an indefinite number of times. Derived from an entertainment using dominoes arranged in a row, each standing on edge and therefore easily knocked over; when the first is made to fall against the next, it starts a sequence which ends when all have fallen. For amus…

Foolish utterance; drivel. The sapless dotages of old Paris and Salamanca. Milton.

o have the intellect impaired, especially by age, so that the mind wanders or wavers; to drivel. Time has made you dote, and vainly tell Of arms imagined in your lonely cell. Dryden. He survived the use of his reason, grew infatuated, and doted long before he died. South.

The acts or speech of a dotard; drivel. [R.]

One of two or more words in the same language derived by different courses from the same original from; as, crypt and grot are doublets; also, guard and ward; yard and garden; abridge and abbreviate, etc.

A piece of wood driven into a wall, so that other pieces may be nailed to it. Dowel joint, a joint secured by a dowel or dowels. -- Dowel pin, a dowel. See Dowel, n.,

Hence, in many derived uses, as:

gradually dry or empty; to remove surface water, as from streets, by gutters, etc.; to deprive of moisture; hence, to exhaust; to empty of wealth, resources, or the like; as, to drain a country of its specie. Sinking waters, the firm land to drain, Filled the capacious deep and formed the main. Roscommon.…

The mode in which the waters of a country pass off by its streams and rivers.

, old imp. of Drive. [Obs.]

To extract; to force out; to elicit; to derive. Spirits, by distillations, may be drawn out of vegetable juices, which shall flame and fume of themselves. Cheyne. Until you had drawn oaths from him. Shak.

the edge or abutment against which the shoulder is to rest, so that a pin or bolt, when driven into it, will draw these parts together. Weale.

er communication at pleasure, as before the gate of a town or castle, or over a navigable river or canal.

me or battle, one in which neither party wins; one equally contested. -- Drawn fox, one driven from cover. Shak. -- Drawn work, ornamental work made by drawing out threads from fine cloth, and uniting the cross threads, to form a pattern.

ine (commonly on a boat) used to scoop up mud, gravel, or obstructions from the bottom of rivers, docks, etc., so as to deepen them.

A fool; a drudge. See Drivel.

To appropriate unlawfully; to filch; to defalcate. He who drives their bargain dribs a part. Dryden.

To slaver, as a child or an idiot; to drivel.

The act or motion of drifting; the force which impels or drives; an overpowering influence or impulse. A bad man, being under the drift of any passion, will follow the impulse of it till something interpose. South.