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hich one resorts for escape or concealment; an artifice employed to escape censure or the force of an argument, or to justify opinions or conduct; a shift; an evasion. Affect not little shifts and subterfuges, to avoid the force of an argument. I. Watts. By a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render this position safe…

uce a vacuum, and causes the liquid to rush in by atmospheric pressure; to draw, or apply force to, by exhausting the air.

r body having a smooth surface, adheres, by reason of the atmospheric pressure, with such force as to enable a considerable weight to be thus lifted by the string; -- used by children as a plaything.

To overthrow, undermine, or force away, in order to get a substitute in place of. You never will supplant the received ideas of God. Landor.

That property, due to molecular forces, which exists in the surface film of all liquids and tends to bring the contained volume into a form having the least superficial area. The thickness of this film, amounting to less than a thousandth of a millimeter, is considered to equal the radius of the sphere of molecular act…

To inclose, as a body of troops, between hostile forces, so as to cut off means of communication or retreat; to invest, as a city.

ing, or fetching a long and deep breath; a deep respiration; a sigh. Windy suspiration of forced breath. Shak.

One who makes a blustering show of valor or force of arms. Shak.

To influence or direct by power and authority; by persuasion, or by moral force; to rule; to govern; to guide. The will of man is by his reason swayed. Shak. She could not sway her house. Shak. This was the race To sway the world, and land and sea subdue. Dryden.

To brush swiftly over the surface of anything; to pass with switness and force, as if brushing the surface of anything; to move in a stately manner; as, the wind sweeps across the plain; a woman sweeps through a drawing-room.

faces, or cleaning away dust, dirt, or litter, as a broom does; moving with swiftness and force; carrying everything before it; including in its scope many persons or things; as, a sweeping flood; a sweeping majority; a sweeping accusation. -- Sweep"ing*ly, adv. -Sweep"ing*ness, n.

To increase in size or extent by any addition; to increase in volume or force; as, a river swells, and overflows its banks; sounds swell or diminish.

knot, a ribbon tied to the hilt of a sword. -- Sword law, government by the sword, or by force; violence. Milton. -- Sword lily. (Bot.) See Gladiolus. -- Sword mat (Naut.), a mat closely woven of yarns; -- so called from a wooden implement used in its manufacture. -- Sword shrimp (Zoöl.), a European shrimp (Pasiphæ…

Same as Syllabication. Rush. Syllabification depends not on mere force, but on discontinuity of force. H. Sweet.

A concession made for the purpose of retorting with greater force.

a conspectus. That the reader may see in one view the exactness of the method, as well as force of the argument, I shall here draw up a short synopsis of this epistle. Bp. Warburton.

The contraction of the heart and arteries by which the blood is forced onward and the circulation kept up; -- correlative to diastole.

The science and art of disposing military and naval forces in order for battle, and performing military and naval evolutions. It is divided into grand tactics, or the tactics of battles, and elementary tactics, or the tactics of instruction.

To obtain possession of by force or artifice; to get the custody or control of; to reduce into subjection to one's power or will; to capture; to seize; to make prisoner; as, to take am army, a city, or a ship; also, to come upon or befall; to fasten on; to attack; to seize; -- said of a disease, misfortune, or the like…

rth, dry sand, sod, or other material, as a hole bored in a rock, in order to prevent the force of the explosion from being misdirected.