Search the Dictionary

State of being stretched to stiffness; tension.

property of the defendant in his hands to him, but appear and answer the suit of the plaintiff.

e of fact, and to declare such a determination to a court; as, the jury find for the plaintiff. Burrill.

, created in the first day, God gave no proper place or fixation. Sir W. Raleigh. Marked stiffness or absolute fixation of a joint. Quain. A fixation and confinement of thought to a few objects. Watts.

Yielding to pressure for want of firmness and stiffness; soft and weak; limber; lax; drooping; flabby; as, a flaccid muscle; flaccid flesh. Religious profession . . . has become flacced. I. Taylor. -- Flac"cid*ly, adv. -- Flac"cid*ness, n.

To hang loose without stiffness; to bend down, as flexible bodies; to be loose, yielding, limp. As loose it [the sail] flagged around the mast. T. Moore.

of being turned, bowed, or twisted, without breaking; pliable; yielding to pressure; not stiff or brittle. When the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks. Shak.

nt (Dionæa muscipula), called also Venus's flytrap, the leaves of which are fringed with stiff bristles, and fold together when certain hairs on their upper surface are touched, thus seizing insects that light on them. The insects so caught are afterwards digested by a secretion from the upper surface of the leaves.…

eign or absent debtor is attached for the satisfaction of a debt due from him to the plaintiff; an attachment of the goods, effects, or credits of a debtor in the hands of a third person; -- called in some States trustee, in others factorizing, and in others garnishee process. Kent. Tomlins. Cowell. -- Foreign bill, a…

or rules; punctilious; regular; orderly; methodical; of a prescribed form; exact; prim; stiff; ceremonious; as, a man formal in his dress, his gait, his conversation. A cold-looking, formal garden, cut into angles and rhomboids. W. Irwing. She took off the formal cap that confined her hair. Hawthorne.…

Base course, under Base, n. -- Foundation muslin, an open-worked gummed fabric used for stiffening dresses, bonnets, etc. -- Foundation school, in England, an endowed school. -- To be on a foundation, to be entitled to a support from the proceeds of an endowment, as a scholar or a fellow of a college.…

rvor, ardor, fire, vivacity, etc.; unfeeling; forbidding in manner; dull and unanimated; stiff and formal; as, a frigid constitution; a frigid style; a frigid look or manner; frigid obedience or service.

Want of ardor, animation, vivacity, etc.; coldness of affection or of manner; dullness; stiffness and formality; as, frigidity of a reception, of a bow, etc.

Frozen; stiff with cold. [Obs.] Spenser.

A strong current of air; a wind between a stiff breeze and a hurricane. The most violent gales are called tempests.

ge saw, a handsaw, with a gauge to regulate the depth of cut. Knight. -- Gauge stuff, a stiff and compact plaster, used in making cornices, moldings, etc., by means of a templet. -- Gauge wheel, a wheel at the forward end of a plow beam, to determine the depth of the furrow. -- Joiner's gauge, an instrument used to…

Attenuated, as with fasting or suffering; lean; meager; pinched and grim. "The gaunt mastiff." Pope. A mysterious but visible pestilence, striding gaunt and fleshless across our land. Nichols.

bric resembling silk gauze; as, wire gauze; cotton gauze. Gauze dresser, one employed in stiffening gauze.

Tenderness or stiffness in the foot of a horse, which causes him to move in a hobbling manner.

To smear with gum; to close with gum; to unite or stiffen by gum or a gumlike substance; to make sticky with a gumlike substance. He frets likke a gummed velvet.Shak.