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An ancient Greek instrument resembling a lyre.

A professional poet and singer, as among the ancient Celts, whose occupation was to compose and sing verses in honor of the heroic achievements of princes and brave men.

Of or pertaining to bards, or their poetry. "The bardic lays of ancient Greece." G. P. Marsh.

An ancient rural game, commonly played round stacks of barley, or other grain, in which some of the party attempt to catch others who run from a goal.

port. -- Baron of the exchequer, the judges of the Court of Exchequer, one of the three ancient courts of England, now abolished.

Pertaining to certain parts, anciently supposed to have a specially important function in the animal economy, as the middle vein of the right arm.

A fabulous serpent, or dragon. The ancients alleged that its hissing would drive away all other serpents, and that its breath, and even its look, was fatal. See Cockatrice. Make me not sighted like the basilisk. Shak.

Of or pertaining to (a) the Batavi, an ancient Germanic tribe; or to (b) as, a Batavian legion. Batavian Republic, the name given to Holland by the French after its conquest in 1795.

uilding containing an apartment or a series of apartments arranged for bathing. Among the ancients, the public baths were of amazing extent and magnificence. Gwilt.

1. (Mil.) An engine used in ancient times to beat down the walls of besieged places.

One of the solid upright parts of a parapet in ancient fortifications.

n the plural, an honorary garland or crown bestowed as a prize for victory or excellence, anciently made or consisting of branches of the laurel. The patriot's honors and the poet's bays. Trumbull.

, shod or armed at the end with a metal head or point, and projecting from the prow of an ancient galley, in order to pierce the vessel of an enemy; a beakhead.

To possess mentally; to carry or hold in the mind; to entertain; to harbor Dryden. The ancient grudge I bear him. Shak.

on of the Bantus, dwelling between the Orange and Zambezi rivers, supposed to be the most ancient Bantu population of South Africa. They are divided into totemic clans; they are intelligent and progressive.

Anciently, a post or pin on each side of the bed to keep the clothes from falling off. See Bedstaff. Brewer.

"A wooden pin stuck anciently on the sides of the bedstead, to hold the clothes from slipping on either side." Johnson. Hostess, accommodate us with a bedstaff. B. Jonson. Say there is no virtue in cudgels and bedstaves. Brome.

Of or pertaining to the Belgæ, a German tribe who anciently possessed the country between the Rhine, the Seine, and the ocean. How unlike their Belgic sires of old. Goldsmith.

A kind of divination anciently practiced by means of marked arrows drawn at random from a bag or quiver, the marks on the arrows drawn being supposed to foreshow the future. Encyc. Brit.

The first day of May (Old Style). The quarter-days anciently in Scotland were Hallowmas, Candlemas, Beltane, and Lammas. New English Dict.