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echanics an apparatus on the principle of the seesaw, in which one end rises as the other falls. Bascule bridge, a counterpoise or balanced drawbridge, which is opened by sinking the counterpoise and thus lifting the footway into the air.

the meaning; as, bespatter, bestir. (b) To render an intransitive verb transitive; as, befall (to fall upon); bespeak (to speak for). (c) To make the action of a verb particular or definite; as, beget (to get as offspring); beset (to set around).

To corroborate; to confirm. -- To bear up, to support; to keep from falling or sinking. "Religious hope bears up the mind under sufferings." Addison.

To come or act with violence; to dash or fall with force; to strike anything, as, rain, wind, and waves do. Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below. Dryden. They [winds] beat at the crazy casement. Longfellow. The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wisbed in himself to die. Jonah iv. 8. Public envy s…

To befall; to chance; to happen to. God knows what hath bechanced them. Shak.

To moisten with dew, or as with dew. "Falling tears his face bedew." Dryden.

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

To befall. [Poetic] I wish all good befortune you. Shak.

To soil with grime or dirt deeply impressed or rubbed in. Books falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. Macaulay.

ument, utensil, or machine, which, by alternate expansion and contraction, or by rise and fall of the top, draws in air through a valve and expels it through a tube for various purposes, as blowing fires, ventilating mines, or filling the pipes of an organ with wind. Bellows camera, in photography, a form of camera, wh…

To happen to; to befall; to come to ; as, woe betide the wanderer. What will betide the few Milton.

turned and turned with nothing to bite. Dickens. To bite the dust, To bite the ground, to fall in the agonies of death; as, he made his enemy bite the dust. -- To bite in (Etching), to corrode or eat into metallic plates by means of an acid. -- To bite the thumb at (any one), formerly a mark of contempt, designed to…

e's plans or withers one's hopes; that which impairs or destroys. A blight seemed to have fallen over our fortunes. Disraeli.

efects. But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more, That they may stumble on, and deeper fall. Milton.

esp. with intermittent light; to twinkle; to flicker; to glimmer, as a lamp. The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink. Wordsworth. The sun blinked fair on pool and stream . Sir W. Scott.

To fall off from the wind; to edge away to leeward; -- said only of inferior craft.

To strike or fall suddenly like a bolt. His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads. Milton.

ivers places twelve great bombards, wherewith they threw huge stones into the air, which, falling down into the city, might break down the houses. Knolles.

A roofing over the cage of a mine, to protect its occupants from objects falling down the shaft.

ving upward to a considerable height, and finally taking a retrograde direction, so as to fall near the place from which it was thrown, or even far in the rear of it.