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An air-tight compartment in which vapor may be generated to destroy germs or insects; esp., the apparatus used to destroy San José scale on nursery stock, with hydrocyanic acid vapor.

Oak given a weathered appearance by exposure in an air-tight compartment to fumes of ammonia from uncorked cans, being first given a coat of filler.

The buttock or tight of a hog, salted and smoked or dried; the lower end of a flitch. Goldsmith.

A stick or small wooden cylinder used for tightening a bandage, in order to compress the arteries of a limb.

A Spanish mode of execution by strangulation, with an iron collar affixed to a post and tightened by a screw until life become extinct; also, the instrument by means of which the punishment is inflicted.

er (Steam Engine), the fixed wedge or gib, and the driving wedge,key, or cotter, used for tightening the strap which holds the brasses at the end of a connecting rod.

s harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. 1 Kings xx. 11. -- To gird up, to bind tightly with a girdle; to support and strengthen, as with a girdle. He girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab. 1 Kings xviii. 46. Gird up the loins of your mind. 1 Pet. i. 13. -- Girt up; prepared or equipped, as for a journey o…

eave taut (Naut.), to turn a capstan, etc., till the rope becomes strained. See Taut, and Tight. -- To heave the lead (Naut.), to take soundings with lead and line. -- To heave the log. (Naut.) See Log. -- To heave up anchor (Naut.), to raise it from the bottom of the sea or elsewhere.

Made perfectly close or air-tight by fusion, so that no gas or spirit can enter or escape; as, an hermetic seal. See Note under Hermetically. Hermetic art, alchemy. -- Hermetic books. (a) Books of the Egyptians, which treat of astrology. (b) Books which treat of universal principles, of the nature and orders of celest…

By fusion, so as to form an air-tight closure.

e abdominal viscera in most common. Called also rupture. Strangulated hernia, a hernia so tightly compressed in some part of the channel through which it has been protruded as to arrest its circulation, and produce swelling of the protruded part. It may occur in recent or chronic hernia, but is more common in the latte…

Hydrostatic bed, a water bed. -- Hydrostatic bellows, an apparatus consisting of a water-tight bellowslike case with a long, upright tube, into which water may be poured to illustrate the hydrostatic paradox. -- Hydrostatic paradox, the proposition in hydrostatics that any quantity of water, however small, may be mad…

ght-headed; foolish. [Obs.] Ford. Idle pulley (Mach.), a pulley that rests upon a belt to tighten it; a pulley that only guides a belt and is not used to transmit power. -- Idle wheel (Mach.), a gear wheel placed between two others, to transfer motion from one to the other without changing the direction of revolution.…

Strained; tightly drawn; kept on the stretch; strict; very close or earnest; as, intense study or application; intense thought.

Tightly drawn; or (perhaps) intricate. [Very rare] Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain, Which are too intrinse to unloose. Shak.

To press into a close or tight position; to crowd; to squeeze; to wedge in. The . . . jammed in between two rocks. De Foe.

To fasten or secure firmly; to fasten or tighten with keys or wedges. Francis. To key up. (a) (Arch.) To raise (the whole ring of an arch) off its centering, by driving in the keystone forcibly. (b) (Mus.) To raise the pitch of. (c) Hence, fig., to produce nervous tension in.

a knot or knots; to form a knot on, as a rope; to entangle. "Knotted curls." Drayton. As tight as I could knot the noose. Tennyson.

Laced mutton, a prostitute. [Old slang] -- Laced stocking, a strong stocking which can be tightly laced; -- used in cases of weak legs, varicose veins, etc. Dunglison.

The act of securing, fastening, or tightening, with a lace or laces.