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a gait in which each leg acts in turn as a propeller and a supporter, and in which for an instant all the limbs are gathered in the air under the body. Stillman (The Horse in Motion).

ng creature, though never so great, the sense and the affects of any one part of the body instantly make a transcursion through the whole. Bacon.

taste and odor; to the hearing, piercing, shrill, as a sharp sound or voice; to the eye, instantaneously brilliant, dazzling, as a sharp flash.

fts upon shields thick. Chaucer The natural world, should gravity once cease, . . . would instantly shiver into millions of atoms. Woodward.

k. Therefore, my lord, address you to your shrift, And be yourself; for you must die this instant. Rowe. Shrift father, a priest to whom confession is made.

With a sudden and violent blow; hence, quickly; instantly; directly. [Colloq.] "The railroad cars drive slap into the city." Thackeray.

ask may be removed from around the sand mold. -- Snap judgment, a judgment formed on the instant without deliberation. -- Snap lock, a lock shutting with a catch or snap. -- Snap riveting, riveting in which the rivets have snapheads formed by a die or swaging tool. -- Snap shot, a quick offhand shot, without delibe…

An instantaneous photograph made, usually with a hand camera, without formal posing of, and often without the foreknowledge of, the subject.

like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. Shak. At a start, at once; in an instant. [Obs.] At a start he was betwixt them two. Chaucer. To get, or have, the start, to before another; to gain or have the advantage in a similar undertaking; -- usually with of. "Get the start of the majestic world." Shak. "…

ith very brief notice; coming unexpectedly, or without the common preparation; immediate; instant; speedy. "O sudden wo!" Chaucer. "For fear of sudden death." Shak. Sudden fear troubleth thee. Job xxii. 10.

Instantly; quickly; speedily; rapidly. [Obs.] That thou doest, do thou swithe. Wyclif (John xiii. 27).

de; especially, a contrivance for registering the state of the tide continuously at every instant of time. Brande & C. -- Tide lock, a lock situated between an inclosed basin, or a canal, and the tide water of a harbor or river, when they are on different levels, so that craft can pass either way at all times of the t…

Motion in which all the points of the moving body have at any instant the same velocity and direction of motion; -- opposed to rotation.

A very short time; an instant; a moment; -- now used only in the phrase in a trice. "With a trice." Turbervile. " On a trice." Shak. A man shall make his fortune in a trice. Young.

The time of a wink; a moment; an instant. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, . . . the dead shall be raised incorruptible. 1 Cor. xv. 52.

Urging; pressing; besetting; plying, with importunity; calling for immediate attention; instantly important. "The urgent hour." Shak. Some urgent cause to ordain the contrary. Hooker. The Egyptians were urgent upon the people that they might send them out of the land in haste. Ex. xii. 33.

ve unit of time. -- Variable velocity, velocity in which the space described varies from instant, either increasing or decreasing; -- in the former case called accelerated velocity, in the latter, retarded velocity; the acceleration or retardation itself being also either uniform or variable. -- Virtual velocity. See…

tition; rivalry; strife; also, a challenge; a wager. [Obs.] We 'll all to church together instantly, And then a vie for boys. J. Fletcher.

A line, within a rotating fluid, whose tangent at every point is the instantaneous axis of rotation as that point of the fluid.

's self to, as a risk; to incur, as a danger; to venture; to hazard. "Too weak to wage an instant trial with the king." Shak. To wake and wage a danger profitless. Shak.