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times twelve feet long, through which an arrow or other projectile may be impelled by the force of the breath. It is a weapon much used by certain Indians of America and the West Indies; -- called also blowpipe, and blowtube. See Sumpitan.

To repress or weaken, as any appetite, desire, or power of the mind; to impair the force, keenness, or susceptibility, of; as, to blunt the feelings.

only with out. Others . . . can not hold, but blurt out, those words which afterward they forced to eat. Hakewill. To blurt at, to speak contemptuously of. [Obs.] Shak.

To utter, or do, with noisy violence; to force by blustering; to bully. He bloweth and blustereth out . . . his abominable blasphemy. Sir T. More. As if therewith he meant to bluster all princes into a perfect obedience to his commands. Fuller.

A nickname for a policeman; -- from Sir Robert Peel, who remodeled the police force. See Peeler. [Slang, Eng.] Dickens.

a spring which gives out very hot water, or water and steam, often ejecting it with much force; a geyser. -- To be at the boiling point, to be very angry. -- To keep the pot boiling, to keep going on actively, as in certain games. [Colloq.]

rough; stormy. The waters swell before a boisterous storm. Shak. The brute and boisterous force of violent men. Milton.

Secure against the explosive force of bombs. -- n.

A binding force or influence; a cause of union; a uniting tie; as, the bonds of fellowship. A people with whom I have no tie but the common bond of mankind. Burke.

An instrument for regulating the electro-motive force in an alternating-current circuit; -- so called because used to "boost", or raise, the pressure in the circuit.

(a passage) by laborious effort, as in boring; as, to bore one's way through a crowd; to force a narrow and difficult passage through. "What bustling crowds I bored." Gay.

Of or pertaining to the Thracian or the Cimmerian Bosporus. The Alans forced the Bosporian kings to pay them tribute and exterminated the Taurians. Tooke.

A curve, in which a body, starting from a given point, and descending solely by the force of gravity, will reach another given point in a shorter time than it could by any other path. This curve of quickest descent, as it is sometimes called, is, in a vacuum, the same as the cycloid.

itten for effect, to show the range and flexibility of a singer's voice, or the technical force and skill of a performer; virtuoso music. Aria di bravura ( Etym: [It.], a florid air demanding brilliant execution.

To diminish the force of; to lessen the shock of, as a fall or blow. I'll rather leap down first, and break your fall. Dryden.

Any structure or contrivance, as a mole, or a wall at the mouth of a harbor, to break the force of waves, and afford protection from their violence.

quarter of its circumference, and prevents the escape of the water until it has spent its force upon the wheel. See Breast wheel.

vable piece which closes the breech of a breech-loading firearm, and resists the backward force of the discharge. It is withdrawn for the insertion of a cartridge, and closed again before the gun is fired.

The force of a blow; shock; collision. "And heavy brunt of cannon ball." Hudibras. It is instantly and irrecoverably scattered by our first brunt with some real affair of common life. I. Taylor.

aterial substance; dimensions; mass; size; as, an ox or ship of great bulk. Against these forces there were prepared near one hundred ships; not so great of bulk indeed, but of a more nimble motion, and more serviceable. Bacon.