Search the Dictionary

A spider which has the habit of rising into the air. Many kinds ( esp. species of Lycosa) do this while young by ejecting threads of silk until the force of the wind upon them carries the spider aloft.

An aëronaut.

The art or practice of ascending in a balloon; aëronautics.

Incapable of being penetrated by balls from firearms.

A room for balls or dancing.

To flog with the bamboo.

onfusing the senses; to hoax; to mystify; to humbug. [Colloq.] Addison. What oriental tomfoolery is bamboozling you J. H. Newman.

A swindler; one who deceives by trickery. [Colloq.] Arbuthnot.

A species of very large rat (Mus giganteus), found in India and Ceylon. It does much injury to rice fields and gardens.

A book kept by a depositor, in which an officer of a bank enters the debits and credits of the depositor's account with the bank.

A French school of the middle of the 19th century centering in the village of Barbizon near the forest of Fontainebleau. Its members went straight to nature in disregard of academic tradition, treating their subjects faithfully and with poetic feeling for color, light, and atmosphere. It is exemplified, esp. in landsca…

With the feet bare; without shoes or stockings.

Having the feet bare.

A slave warehouse, or an inclosure where slaves are quartered temporarily. Du Chaillu.

A room containing a bar or counter at which liquors are sold.

A red wood of a leguminous tree (Baphia nitida), from Angola and the Gaboon in Africa. It is used as a dyewood, and also for ramrods, violin bows and turner's work.

A wind instrument of the double reed kind, furnished with holes, which are stopped by the fingers, and by keys, as in flutes. It forms the natural bass to the oboe, clarinet, etc.

A performer on the bassoon. Busby.

The bass (Tilia) or its wood; especially, T. Americana. See Bass, the lime tree. All the bowls were made of basswood, White and polished very smoothly. Longfellow.

See Baton, and Baston.