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Anything given gratuitously to relieve the poor, as money, food, or clothing; a gift of charity. A devout man . . . which gave much alms to the people. Acts x. 2. Alms are but the vehicles of prayer. Dryden. Tenure by free alms. See Frankalmoign. Blackstone.

Measurement (of cloth) by the ell; also, a duty for such measurement.

he ell; formerly a sworn officer in England, whose duty was to inspect act measure woolen cloth, and fix upon it a seal.

A thin kind of cloth made of the wooly hair of the alpaca, often mixed with silk or with cotton.

er, which is used throughout India for making ropes, cordage, and a coarse canvas and sackcloth; --called also brown Indian hemp.

The hangings or screen in front of the altar; an altar cloth; the frontal. Smollett.

External clothing; vesture; garments; dress; garb; external habiliments or array. Fresh in his new apparel, proud and young. Denham. At public devotion his resigned carriage made religion appear in the natural apparel of simplicity. Tatler.

An article of dress, of cloth, leather, or other stuff, worn on the fore part of the body, to keep the clothes clean, to defend them from injury, or as a covering. It is commonly tied at the waist by strings.

Red dress cloths formerly hung fore and aft outside of a ship's upper works on holidays. Arming press (Bookbinding), a press for stamping titles and designs on the covers of books.

Defensive arms for the body; any clothing or covering worn to protect one's person in battle.

Clothes; raiment. [Obs.]

Tapestry; a rich figured fabric; especially, a screen or hangings of heavy cloth with interwoven figures. Stateliest couches, with rich arras spread. Cowper. Behind the arras I'll convey myself. Shak.

To deck or dress; to adorn with dress; to cloth to envelop; -- applied esp. to dress of a splendid kind. Pharaoh . . . arrayed him in vestures of fine linen. Gen. xli. In gelid caves with horrid gloom arrayed. Trumbull.

like paleness. The lip of ashes, and the cheek of flame. Byron. In dust and ashes, In sackcloth and ashes, with humble expression of grief or repentance; -- from the method of mourning in Eastern lands. -- Volcanic ashes, or Volcanic ash, the loose, earthy matter, or small fragments of stone or lava, ejected by volcan…

Obtainable. [Obs.] General Howe would not permit the purchase of those articles [clothes and blankets] in Philadelphia, and they were not attainable in the country. Marshall.

To dress; to array; to adorn; esp., to clothe with elegant or splendid garments. Finely attired in a robe of white. Shak. With the linen miter shall he be attired. Lev. xvi. 4.

A French cloth measure, of different parts of the country (at Paris, 0.95 of an English ell); -- now superseded by the meter.

To clothe with authority, warrant, or legal power; to give a right to act; to empower; as, to authorize commissioners to settle a boundary.

A garment for the back; hence, clothing. A bak to walken inne by daylight. Chaucer. Behind one's back, when one is absent; without one's knowledge; as, to ridicule a person behind his back. -- Full back, Half back, Quarter back (Football), players stationed behind those in the front line. -- To be or lie on one's bac…

The clothes, tents, utensils, and provisions of an army.