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One who tumbles; one who plays tricks by various motions of the body; an acrobat.

The commotion or agitation of a multitude, usually accompanied with great noise, uproar, and confusion of voices; hurly-burly; noisy confusion. What meaneth the noise of this tumult 1 Sam. iv. 14. Till in loud tumult all the Greeks arose. Pope.

Whirling in the manner of a top. A spiral and turbinated motion of the whole. Bentley.

To cause to move upon a center, or as if upon a center; to give circular motion to; to cause to revolve; to cause to move round, either partially, wholly, or repeatedly; to make to change position so as to present other sides in given directions; to make to face otherwise; as, to turn a wheel or a spindle; to turn the…

A closing or opening, or a quick motion, of the eye; a wink or sparkle of the eye. Suddenly, with twinkle of her eye, The damsel broke his misintended dart. Spenser.

The act of twirling; a rapid circular motion; a whirl or whirling; quick rotation.

To pull with a sudden jerk; to pluck with a short, quick motion; to snatch; as, to twitch one by the sleeve; to twitch a thing out of another's hand; to twitch off clusters of grapes. Thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear. Pope.

er sail. (Naut.) (a) With anchor up, and under the influence of sails; moved by sails; in motion. (b) With sails set, though the anchor is down. (c) Same as Under canvas (a), above. Totten. -- Under sentence, having had one's sentence pronounced. -- Under the breath, with low voice; very softly. -- Under the lee (Na…

Rising and falling like waves; resembling wave form or motion; undulatory; rolling; wavy; as, an undulating medium; undulating ground. -- Un"du*la`ting*ly. adv.

The act of undulating; a waving motion or vibration; as, the undulations of a fluid, of water, or of air; the undulations of sound.

Moving in the manner of undulations, or waves; resembling the motion of waves, which successively rise or swell rise or swell and fall; pertaining to a propagated alternating motion, similar to that of waves. Undulatory theory, or Wave theory (of light) (Opt.), that theory which regards its various phenomena as due to…

rm matter, that which is all of the same kind and texture; homogenous matter. -- Uniform motion, the motion of a body when it passes over equal spaces in equal times; equable motion. Hutton.

sed for joining two shafts or parts of a machine endwise, so that the one may give rotary motion to the other when forming an angle with it, or may move freely in all directions with respect to the other, as by means of a cross connecting the forked ends of the two shafts (Fig. 1). Since this joint can not act when the…

Not seconded; not supported, aided, or assisted; as, the motion was unseconded; the attempt was unseconded.

rom concealment; from younger age; from a quiet state, or the like; -- used with verbs of motion expressed or implied. But they presumed to go up unto the hilltop. Num. xiv. 44. I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. Ps. lxxxviii. 15. Up rose the sun, and up rose Emelye. Chaucer. We have wrought ourselves up…

To rise upward in a whirl; to raise upward with a whirling motion.

To rise with a curling motion; to curl upward, as smoke. Longfellow.

curved and pointed, used on toe or quarter cracks to bind the edges together and prevent motion. It is clasped into two notches, one on each side of the crack, burned into the wall with a cautery iron.

e surface of a valve which comes in contact with the valve seat. -- Valve gear, or Valve motion (Steam Engine), the system of parts by which motion is given to the valve or valves for the distribution of steam in the cylinder. For an illustration of one form of valve gear, see Link motion. -- Valve seat. (Mach.) (a)…

star, produced by the combined effects of the precession of the equinoxes and the proper motion of the star. -- Calculus of variations. See under Calculus. -- Variation compass. See under Compass. -- Variation of the moon (Astron.), an inequality of the moon's motion, depending on the angular distance of the moon f…