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The insertion of points between word or sentences; punctuation.

Spun out, or extended, to great length; hence, long-winded; tedious. The longspun allegories fulsome grow, While the dull moral lies too plain below. Addison.

To punctuate wrongly or incorrectly.

A genus of cactaceous plants; the prickly pear, or Indian fig.

A pointed steel punch, to prick a mark on metal.

A suborder of Gephyrea, including those which have the body unarmed and the intestine opening anteriorly.

Pertaining to the Sipunculoidea. -- n.

In a restricted sense, same as Sipunculacea.

imp. & p. p. of Spin. Spun hay, hay twisted into ropes for convenient carriage, as on a military expedition. -- Spun silk, a cheap article produced from floss, or short-fibered, broken, and waste silk, carded and spun, in distinction from the long filaments wound from the cocoon. It is often mixed with cotton. -- Spu…

A sponge. [Obs.]

that readily takes fire; touchwood; also, a kind of tinder made from a species of fungus; punk; amadou. Sir T. Browne.

Full of spunk; quick; spirited. [Colloq.]

is allegiance; to absolve an offender, which amounts to an acquittal and remission of his punishment. Halifax was absolved by a majority of fourteen. Macaulay.

of certain kinds of food or drink, especially of meat. Penance, fasts, and abstinence, To punish bodies for the soul's offense. Dryden.

To use ill; to maltreat; to act injuriously to; to punish or to tax excessively; to hurt; as, to abuse prisoners, to abuse one's powers, one's patience.

Sharp and harsh, or bitter and not, to the taste; pungent; as, acrid salts.

The quality of being acrid or pungent; irritant bitterness; acrimony; as, the acridity of a plant, of a speech.

Acridity; pungency joined with heat. [Obs.]

or the enforcement or protection of a right, the redress or prevention of a wrong, or the punishment of a public offense.

To sharpen; to make pungent; to quicken. [Obs.] "[To] acuate the blood." Harvey.