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Used as a symbol of the holder of a distaff; hence, a woman; women, collectively. His crown usurped, a distaff on the throne. Dryden. Some say the crozier, some say the distaff was too busy. Howell.

istribute sum, share, or percentage; -- applied to the profits as appropriated among shareholders, and to assets as apportioned among creditors; as, the dividend of a bank, a railway corporation, or a bankrupt estate.

le; extendible; -- the opposite of contractible or compressible. "An extensible membrane" Holder.

-- Fagot vote, the vote of a person who has been constituted a voter by being made a landholder, for party purposes. [Political cant, Eng.]

at the Nicene Council fell on the 21st of March, falls now [1694] about ten days sooner. Holder.

An upholder of feudalism.

er (Colaptes aurutus); -- so called from its spring note. Called also yellow-hammer, high-holder, pigeon woodpecker, and yucca. The cackle of the flicker among the oaks. Thoureau.

to rest on; firm foundation to stand on. In ascent, every stfooting and help to the next. Holder.

th and voice; the formal is constituted by the motion and figure of the organs of speech. Holder.

An English freeholder, or substantial householder. [Obs.] Chaucer. The franklin, a small landholder of those days. Sir J. Stephen.

Of or pertaining to the gums. Holder.

ryale, and Medusa, with snaky hair and of terrific aspect, the sight of whom turned the beholder to stone. The name is particularly given to Medusa.

e United States. When any town shall increase to the number of a hundred families or householders, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University. Mass. Records (1647).

A firearm with match holder, trigger, and tumbler, made in the second half of the 15th century. the barrel was about forty inches long. A form of the harquebus was subsequently called arquebus with matchlock.

A possessor; a holder. Shak.

f of a frankpledge, tithing, or decennary, consisting of ten families; -- called also borsholder, boroughhead, boroughholder, and sometimes tithingman. See Borsholder. [Eng.] Blackstone.

A proprietor or landholder in a parish. [Scot.]

A title applied to the holders of certain honorable civil offices, or to persons of rank; as, His Honor the Mayor. See Note under Honorable.

To cause to feel horror; to strike or impress with horror; as, the sight horrified the beholders. E. Irving.

One who occupies a house with his family; a householder; the master or mistress of a family. Locke.