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Cordage or cables, made of this material.

The quality of being communicable; capability of being imparted.

Communicable by contact, by a virus, or by a bodily exhalation; catching; as, a contagious disease.

A disease communicable by contact with a patient suffering from it, or with some secretion of, or object touched by, such a patient. Most such diseases have already been proved to be germ diseases, and their communicability depends on the transmission of the living germs. Many germ diseases are not contagious, some sp…

To view or treat with contempt, as mean and despicable; to reject with disdain; to despise; to scorn. Thy pompous delicacies I contemn. Milton. One who contemned divine and human laws. Dryden.

Worthy of contempt; deserving of scorn or disdain; mean; vile; despicable. Milton. The arguments of tyranny are ascontemptible as its force is dreadful. Burke.

n iron block, usually bolted to a ship's deck, for controlling the running out of a chain cable. The links of the cable tend to drop into hollows in the block, and thus hold fast until disengaged.

Capable of being countermanded; revocable. Bacon.

A person full of crotchets; one given to fantastic or impracticable projects; one whose judgment is perverted in respect to a particular matter. [Colloq.]

To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.

A beam laid across the bitts, to which the cable is fastened when riding at anchor.

The bights formed by the several turns of a cable. Totten.

ld. -- To cut and run, to make off suddenly and quickly; -- from the cutting of a ship's cable, when there is not time to raise the anchor. [Colloq.] -- To cut in or into, to interrupt; to jont an anything suddenly. -- To cut up. (a) To play pranks. [Colloq.] (b) To divide into portions well or ill; to have the prope…

Aiming or willing to destroy; implacable; desperately hostile; flagitious; as, deadly enemies. Thy assailant is quick, skillful, and deadly. Shak.

troversy; putting an end to contest or controversy; final; conclusive. "A decisive, irrevocable doom." Bates. "Decisive campaign." Macaulay. "Decisive proof." Hallam.

A class to which a certain representation is applicable; kind; sort. A difference . . . between them and another description of public creditors. A. Hamilton. The plates were all of the meanest description. Macaulay.

Despicableness. [R.] Carlyle.

In a despicable or mean manner; contemptibly; as, despicably stingy.

Despicable; contemptible. [R.]

spar or buoy held by an anchor and furnished with a ring to which ships may fasten their cables. R. H. Dana.