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Distance to which a missile is cast; range; reach; as, the random of a rifle ball. Sir K. Digby.

A place where shooting, as with cannons or rifles, is practiced.

iciencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries. Buckle. To the people . . . but a trifle, to the king but a ridicule. Foxe.

The act or process of making the grooves in a rifled cannon or gun barrel.

The merest trifle; a straw. John Bull's friendship is not worth a rush. Arbuthnot. Bog rush. See under Bog. -- Club rush, any rush of the genus Scirpus. -- Flowering rush. See under Flowering. -- Nut rush (a) Any plant of the genus Scleria, rushlike plants with hard nutlike fruits. (b) A name for several species of…

To hesitate; to act in an irresolute manner; hence, to occupy one's self with trifles.

on the breech, muzzle, center, or trunnion of a gun, or on the breech and the muzzle of a rifle, pistol, etc., by means of which the eye is guided in aiming. Farrow.

A spongy, semivitrifled substance which miners or smelters mix with the ores of metals to prevent their fusion. [Written also slakin.]

Slowness; tardiness. These cardinals trifle with me; I abhor This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome. Shak.

d especially of persons. "His quests, great and small." Chaucer. -- Small arms, muskets, rifles, pistols, etc., in distinction from cannon. -- Small beer. See under Beer. -- Small coal. (a) Little coals of wood formerly used to light fires. Gay. (b) Coal about the size of a hazelnut, separated from the coarser parts…

Having a bore of perfectly smooth surface; -- distinguished from rifled. -- n.

One who, or that which, snaps; as, a snapper up of trifles; the snapper of a whip.

A trifle. "The soldier's pay is a song." Silliman. Old song, a trifle; nothing of value. "I do not intend to be thus put off with an old song." Dr. H. More. -- Song bird (Zoöl.), any singing bird; one of the Oscines. -- Song sparrow (Zoöl.), a very common North American sparrow (Melospiza fasciata, or M. melodia) not…

culty is a goodly field, . . . and it is the worst husbandry in the world to sow it with trifles. Sir M. Hale. [He] sowed with stars the heaven. Milton. Now morn . . . sowed the earth with orient pearl. Milton.

To trifle. "He sports with his own life." Tillotson.

ate a hardware stack, as, a push-down stack. Stack of arms (Mil.), a number of muskets or rifles set up together, with the bayonets crossing one another, forming a sort of conical self-supporting pile.

d we will stick by you." Davenant. (b) To be troublesome by adhering. "I am satisfied to trifle away my time, rather than let it stick by me." Pope. -- To stick out. (a) To project; to be prominent. "His bones that were not seen stick out." Job xxxiii. 21. (b) To persevere in a purpose; to hold out; as, the garrison s…

Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing; a mere trifle. I set not a straw by thy dreamings. Chaucer.

An instrument for whetting scythes; a rifle.

The issuing of a projectile from a rifled gun without acquiring the spiral motion. Farrow.