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Engaging or engaged to deliver what is not possessed; as, short contracts; to be short of stock. See The shorts, under Short, n., and To sell short, under Short, adv.

Engaged in, or given to, seeing sights; eager for novelties or curiosities.

Engaged in by only one on a side; single. [Obs.] To try the matter thus together in a singular combat. Holinshed.

A vessel engaged in the slave trade; a slave ship.

One who is engaged in military service as an officer or a private; one who serves in an army; one of an organized body of combatants. I am a soldier and unapt to weep. Shak.

A black substance formed by combustion, or disengaged from fuel in the process of combustion, which rises in fine particles, and adheres to the sides of the chimney or pipe conveying the smoke; strictly, the fine powder, consisting chiefly of carbon, which colors smoke, and which is the result of imperfect combustion.…

Tending to, engaged in, or provocate of, sport; gay; froliscome; playful; merry. Is it I That drive thee from the sportive court Shak. -- Sport"ive*ly, adv. -- Sport"ive*ness, n.

A little person or creature engaged in sports or in play. When again the lambkins play --Pretty sportlings, full of May. Philips.

A man or woman engaged or joined in wedlock; a married person, husband or wife. At last such grace I found, and means I wrought, That that lady to my spouse had won. Spenser.

to start a mill; to start a stream of water; to start a rumor; to start a business. I was engaged in conversation upon a subject which the people love to start in discourse. Addison.

Ardent; eager; zealous; earnestly engaged; as, a strong partisan; a strong Whig or Tory. Her mother, ever strong against that match. Shak.

A person engaged in study; one who is devoted to learning; a learner; a pupil; a scholar; especially, one who attends a school, or who seeks knowledge from professional teachers or from books; as, the students of an academy, a college, or a university; a medical student; a hard student. Keep a gamester from the dice, a…

Betrothed; engaged to marry. [Obs.] The king was sure to Dame Elizabeth Lucy, and her husband before God. Sir T. More. I presume . . . that you had been sure as fast as faith could bind you, man and wife. Brome.

Belonging to sutlers; engaged in the occupation of a sutler. Addison.

One engaged with others at a banquet or merrymaking. Sydney Smith.

An agent of a corporation, or of any body of men engaged in a business enterprise; an advocate or patron; an assignee.

ot of threads, or other thing, united confusedly, or so interwoven as not to be easily disengaged; a snarl; as, hair or yarn in tangles; a tangle of vines and briers. Used also figuratively.

To seize, rend, or tear something as prey; to be fixed upon, or engaged with, anything. [Obs.] Thus made she her remove, And left wrath tiring on her son. Chapman. Upon that were my thoughts tiring. Shak.

Effect; end; consequence; as, the prince was flattered to his ruin; he engaged in a war to his cost; violent factions exist to the prejudice of the state.

ith a broad purple border, worn by children of both sexes, by magistrates, and by persons engaged in sacred rites. -- Toga virilis Etym: [L.], the manly gown; the common toga. This was assumed by Roman boys about the time of completing their fourteenth year.