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e contest with cudgels. -- To cross the cudgels, to forbear or give up the contest; -- a phrase borrowed from the practice of cudgel players, who lay one cudgel over another when the contest is ended. -- To take up cudgels for, to engage in a contest in behalf of (some one or something).

o reprove solemnly; to expostulate with. The deacons of his church, who, to use their own phrase, "dealt with him" on the sin of rejecting the aid which Providence so manifestly held out. Hawthorne. Return . . . and I will deal well with thee. Gen. xxxii. 9.

of; to describe accurately; to explain; to expound or interpret; as, to define a word, a phrase, or a scientific term. They define virtue to be life ordered according to nature. Robynson (More's Utopia).

quality of representing; containing description; as, a descriptive figure; a descriptive phrase; a descriptive narration; a story descriptive of the age. Descriptive anatomy, that part of anatomy which treats of the forms and relations of parts, but not of their textures. -- Descriptive geometry, that branch of geome…

Use or application; import; intention; signification, as of a word or phrase. Finite and infinite seem . . . to be attributed primarily, in their first designation, only to those things have parts. Locke.

f our writers; and noting whatever might be of use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumulated in time the materials of a dictionary. Johnson.

elf so as to give stronger resistance; -- used of warfare. Also figuratively, esp. in the phrase to dig in one's heels.

numbered in characterizing a term. The term dimensions forms with the cardinal numbers a phrase equivalent to degree with the ordinal; thus, a2b2c is a term of five dimensions, or of the fifth degree.

fast, dine, sup, and sleep. Shak. To dine with Duke Humphrey, to go without dinner; -- a phrase common in Elizabethan literature, said to be from the practice of the poor gentry, who beguiled the dinner hour by a promenade near the tomb of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in Old Saint Paul's.

Force; power; -- esp. in the phrase by dint of. Now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel The dint of pity. Shak. It was by dint of passing strength That he moved the massy stone at length. Sir W. Scott.

or authority to dispose of, determine the condition of, control, etc., especially in the phrase at, or in, the disposal of. The sole and absolute disposal of him an his concerns. South.

To put or bring into a form, state, or condition, especially in the phrases, to do death, to put to death; to slay; to do away (often do away with), to put away; to remove; to do on, to put on; to don; to do off, to take off, as dress; to doff; to do into, to put into the form of; to translate or transform into, as a t…

ey improve their banquet, and innocent dodges, if we may be permitted to use an excellent phrase that has become vernacular since the appearance of the last dictionaries. Thackeray.

It is done or agreed; let it be a match or bargain; -- used elliptically. Done brown, a phrase in cookery; applied figuratively to one who has been thoroughly deceived, cheated, or fooled. [Colloq.] -- Done for, tired out; used up; collapsed; destroyed; dead; killed. [Colloq.] -- Done up. (a) Wrapped up. (b) Worn out;…

A Doric phrase or idiom.

A Doric phrase or idiom.

Characterized by ambiguity; dubious; as, a doubtful expression; a doubtful phrase.

or consequence, as distinguished from telic, which denotes intention or purpose; thus the phrase so that it was fulfilled," is ecbatic; if rendered "in order that it might be." etc., is telic.

precedes two, or more, coördinate words or phrases, and is introductory to an alternative. It is correlative to or. Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth. 1 Kings xviii. 27. Few writers hesitate to use either in what is called a triple alternative; such as, We must…

ectricity, that which is developed in organic structures, either animal or vegetable, the phrase animal electricity being much more common.