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Disposing to sleep; lulling; soporific. The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good. Tennyson.

drum; drum music. Whose morning drumbeat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England. D. Webster.

return or fall back from a better to a worse state; to decline; to decay; to recede. The hours of life ebb fast. Blackmore.

c. The elder shall serve the younger. Gen. xxv. 23. But ask of elder days, earth's vernal hour. Keble. Elder hand (Card Playing), the hand playing, or having the right to play, first. Hoyle.

raduated circle, the one for measuring declination, and the other right ascension, or the hour angle, so that the telescope may be directed, even in the daytime, to any star or other object whose right ascension and declination are known. The motion in right ascension is sometimes communicated by clockwork, so as to ke…

confidence of; to turn from attachment to enmity or indifference. I do not know, to this hour, what it is that has estranged him from me. Pope. He . . . had pretended to be estranged from the Whigs, and had promised to act as a spy upon them. Macaulay.

The place where the merchants, brokers, and bankers of a city meet at certain hours, to transact business. In this sense often contracted to 'Change. Arbitration of exchange. See under Arbitration. -- Bill of exchange. See under Bill. -- Exchange broker. See under Broker. -- Par of exchange, the established value of…

t; poof. A political experiment can not be made in a laboratory, not determinant in a few hours. J. Adams.

erary; also, extraordinarily good; superior; as, extra work; extra pay. "By working extra hours." H. Spencer.

Last; final; conclusive; -- said of time; as, the extreme hour of life.

lie in the clock, it is but a falsehood in the hand of the dial when pointing at a wrong hour, if rightly following the direction of the wheel which moveth it. Fuller.

fates were, against him. A brave man struggling in the storms of fate. Pope. Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams. B. Taylor.

t as a feather; to give wings to.[R.] The Polonian story perhaps may feather some tedions hours. Loveday.

an absolute fee; a fee without conditions or limits. Buy the fee simple of my life for an hour and a quarter. Shak. -- Fee tail (Law), an estate of inheritance, limited and restrained to some particular heirs. Burill.

A meal, or the act of eating. [R.] For such pleasure till that hour At feed or fountain never had I found. Milton.

as, they fought the enemy in two pitched battles; the sloop fought the frigate for three hours.

To indicate by numerals; also, to compute. As through a crystal glass the figured hours are seen. Dryden.

To burst forth like a sudden flame; to break out violently; to rush hastily. Every hour He flashes into one gross crime or other. Shak. To flash in the pan, to fail of success. [Colloq.] See under Flash, a burst of light. Bartlett.

e Fleet prison, who was ready to unite persons in marriage (called Fleet marriage) at any hour, without public notice, witnesses, or consent of parents.

Passing swiftly away; not durable; transient; transitory; as, the fleeting hours or moments.