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from a lopped belt attached to the gun; -- popularly so called from its peculiar drumming sound in action. Sometimes, any of other similar automatic cannons.

To beat soundly, as with the pommel of a sword, or with something knoblike; hence, to beat with the fists. [Written also pummel.]

A small, sharp, quick explosive sound or report; as, to go off with a pop. Addison.

In singing, or in the use of the bow, a gradual carrying or lifting of the voice or sound very smoothly from one note to another; a gliding from tone to tone.

ry or constant use; state of being used. Obsolete words may be revived when they are more sounding or more significant than those in practice. Dryden.

Preceding; introductory; precursory. "A deep precursive sound." Coleridge.

Preceding the diastole of the heart; as, a prediastolic friction sound.

Preceding the systole or contraction of the heart; as, the presystolic friction sound.

omething else; antecedent; prior; as, previous arrangements; a previous illness. The dull sound . . . previous to the storm, Rolls o'er the muttering earth. Thomson. Previous question. (Parliamentary Practice) See under Question, and compare Closure. -- Previous to, before; -- often used adverbially for previously. "P…

Beginning; commencement. [Obs.] Doubting sad end of principle unsound. Spenser.

s. cxlii. 7. The tyrant Æolus, . . . With power imperial, curbs the struggling winds, And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds. Dryden.

ly; to speak out or distinctly; to utter, as words or syllables; to speak with the proper sound and accent as, adults rarely learn to pronounce a foreign language correctly.

The act of uttering with articulation; the act of giving the proper sound and accent; utterance; as, the pronunciation of syllables of words; distinct or indistinct pronunciation.

To cause to spread to extend; to impel or continue forward in space; as, to propagate sound or light.

ading abroad, or extension, of anything; diffusion; dissemination; as, the propagation of sound; the propagation of the gospel. Bacon.

sight and hearing remain unimpaired, the mind fails to appreciate the significance of the sounds heard or the images seen. -- Psychical contagion, the transference of disease, especially of a functional nervous disease, by mere force of example. -- Psychical medicine, that department of medicine which treats of menta…

To make a low whistling sound; to chirp, as birds. Halliwell.

; to fill in or spread with mortar, as a floor or partition, for the purpose of deadening sound. See Pugging, 2.

ke, laid between the joists under the boards of a floor, or within a partition, to deaden sound; -- in the United States usually called deafening.

A stroke or impulse by which some medium is affected, as in the propagation of sounds.