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A device, usually of iron bent at the ends, used to hold together blocks of stone, timbers, etc.; a cramp iron.

A siphon, or bent pipe, for drawing liquors out of a cask.

A bent portion of an axle, or shaft, or an arm keyed at right angles to the end of a shaft, by which motion is imparted to or received from it; also used to change circular into reciprocating motion, or reciprocating into circular motion. See Bell crank.

A slow rising of the floor of a gallery, occasioned by the pressure of incumbent strata upon the pillars or sides; a gradual movement of mining ground.

A poetic foot, composed of one short syllable between two long ones (-Bentley.

An ornament often resembling curved and bent foliage, projecting from the sloping edge of a gable, spire, etc.

Any implement having a bent or crooked end. Especially: (a) The staff used by a shepherd, the hook of which serves to hold a runaway sheep. (b) A bishop's staff of office. Cf. Pastoral stafu. He left his crook, he left his flocks. Prior.

ealand plover (Anarhynchus frontalis), remarkable for having the end of the beak abruptly bent to the right.

Characterized by a crook or curve; not straight; turning; bent; twisted; deformed. "Crooked paths." Locke. he is deformed, crooked, old, and sere. Shak.

To bend down; to stoop low; to lie close to the ground with the logs bent, as an animal when waiting for prey, or in fear. Now crouch like a cur. Beau. & Fl.

s for exploration or for pleasure. He feigned a compliance with some of his men, who were bent upon going a cruise to Manilla. Dampier.

Crooked; bent. [Obs.] Crooked backs and crump shoulders. Jer. Taylor.

To overwhelm by pressure or weight; to beat or force down, as by an incumbent weight. To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. Dryden. Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again. Bryant.

The cracklling noise made by block tin when it is bent back and forth. A far cry, a long distance; -- in allusion to the sending of criers or messengers through the territory of a Scottish clan with an announcement or summons.

Lying down; recumbent. [R.]

a curate; a curacy; as, to resign a cure; to obtain a cure. The appropriator was the incumbent parson, and had the cure of the souls of the parishioners. Spelman.

Bowed; bent; curved.

Bent in a regular form; curved.

The act of curving, or the state of being bent or curved; a curving or bending, normal or abnormal, as of a line or surface from a rectilinear direction; a bend; a curve. Cowper. The elegant curvature of their fronds. Darwin.

Bent without angles; crooked; curved; as, a curve line; a curve surface.