Search the Dictionary

constantly increasing volume of voice; with gradually increasing strength and fullness of tone; -- a direction for the performance of music, indicated by the mark, or by writing the word on the score.

A structure of logs to be anchored with stones; -- used for docks, pier, dams, etc.

a crime; guiltiness; guilt. This is by no means the only criterion of criminality. Blackstone.

A small, inclosed field, adjoining a house; a small farm. A few small crofts of stone-encumbered ground. Wordsworth.

A monument of rough stones composed of one or more large ones supported in a horizontal position upon others. They are found chiefly in countris inhabited by the ancient Celts, and are of a period anterior to the introduction of Christianity into these countries.

A certain reed stop in the organ, of a quality of tone resembling that of the oboe. [Corruptly written cromona.]

To hum or sing in a low tone; to murmur softly. Here an old grandmother was crooning over a sick child, and rocking it to and fro. Dickens.

A projecting ornament in carved stone. Specifically, a finial. [Obs.]

a market cross; a boundary cross; Charing Cross in London. Dun-Edin's Cross, a pillared stone, Rose on a turret octagon. Sir W. Scott.

The shoulder of a joggled keystone.

with the definite article. Parliament may be dissolved by the demise of the crown. Blackstone. Large arrears of pay were due to the civil and military servants of the crown. Macaulay.

l fragments; hence, to fall to decay or ruin; to become disintegrated; to perish. If the stone is brittle, it will crumble and pass into the form of gravel. Arbuthnot. The league deprived of its principal supports must soon crumble to pieces. Prescott.

To emit a grinding or craunching noise. The crunching and ratting of the loose stones. H. James.

The lowest course of stones in a building.

A lever mounted on a tripod for lifting stones, leveling up railroad ties, etc. Knight.

Under culture; cultivated. "Cultured vales." Shenstone.

up; as, the cup of an acorn, or of a flower. The cowslip's golden cup no more I see. Shenstone.

round an opening, and serving to maintain the integrity of that opening; also, a ring of stone serving a similar purpose, as at the eye of a dome.

The wiew or doctrins of the ultramontane party in the Latin Church. Gladstone.

A scottish game in which heavy weights of stone or iron are propelled by hand over the ice towards a mark. Curling . . . is an amusement of the winter, and played on the ice, by sliding from one mark to another great stones of 40 to 70 pounds weight, of a hemispherical form, with an iron or wooden handle at top. The ob…