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ns performed by fireman for practice. (b) An apparatus for producing fire by friction, by rapidly twirling a wooden pin in a wooden socket; -- used by the Hindoos during all historic time, and by many savage peoples. -- Fire eater. (a) A juggler who pretends to eat fire. (b) A quarrelsome person who seeks affrays; a h…

A luminous meteor, resembling a ball of fire passing rapidly through the air, and sometimes exploding.

], used to direct special attention to the passage which follows. Hand over fist (Naut.), rapidly; hand over hand.

To pass over rapidly; to skin the surface of; as, a ship that fleets the gulf. Spenser.

In a fleet manner; rapidly.

Swiftness; rapidity; velocity; celerity; speed; as, the fleetness of a horse or of time.

Of smooth, fluent, and rapid speech; speaking with ease and rapidity; having a voluble tongue; talkative. It becometh good men, in such cases, to be flippant and free in their speech. Barrow.

To move with celerity through the air; to fly away with a rapid motion; to dart along; to fleet; as, a bird flits away; a cloud flits along. A shadow flits before me. Tennyson.

Flowery; ornamental; running in rapid melodic figures, divisions, or passages, as in variations; full of fioriture or little ornamentations.

sh deck. (Naut.) See under Deck, n., 1. -- Flush tank, a water tank which can be emptied rapidly for flushing drainpipes, etc.

ion; disorder. Pope. Flutter wheel, a water wheel placed below a fall or in a chute where rapidly moving water strikes the tips of the floats; -- so called from the spattering, and the fluttering noise it makes.

To move through the air or before the wind; esp., to pass or be driven rapidly through the air by any impulse.

Moving in the air with, or as with, wings; moving lightly or rapidly; intended for rapid movement.

.) An amphibious animal of the genus Rana and related genera, of many species. Frogs swim rapidly, and take long leaps on land. Many of the species utter loud notes in the springtime.

To utter inarticulate sounds with rapidity; as, gabbling fowls. Dryden.

, and a frontal shield, belonging to the family Rallidae. They are remarkable for running rapidly over marshes and on floating plants. The purple gallinule of America is Ionornis Martinica, that of the Old World is Porphyrio porphyrio. The common European gallinule (Gallinula chloropus) is also called moor hen, water h…

Fig.: To go rapidly or carelessly, as in making a hasty examination. Such superficial ideas he may collect in galloping over it. Locke.

Going at a gallop; progressing rapidly; as, a galloping horse.

To bring together, or nearer together, in masonry, as where the width of a fireplace is rapidly diminished to the width of the flue, or the like.

lied to the origin of disease, the theory claims that the zymotic diseases are due to the rapid development and multiplication of various bacteria, the germs or spores of which are either contained in the organism itself, or transferred through the air or water. See Fermentation theory.