Search the Dictionary

The number of two dozen; also, an indefinite number; a bunch; a company; a throng. "The worst of a thrave." [Obs.] Landsdowne MS. He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale. Bp. Hall.

f rest after it has been twisted; torsibility. Angle of torsion (of a curve) (Geom.), the indefinitely small angle between two consecutive osculating planes of a curve of double curvature. -- Moment of torsion (Mech.) the moment of a pair of equal and opposite couples which tend to twist a body. -- Torsion balance (P…

A region or quantity of land or water, of indefinite extent; an area; as, an unexplored tract of sea. A very high mountain joined to the mainland by a narrowtract of earth. Addison.

An indefinite large quantity. Shak. A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ. Dryden.

An indefinite number more or less that twenty. Shak. Maximilian, upon twenty respects, could not have been the man. Bacon.

An indefinite number, usu. more than ten and less than one hundred; a lot. Often used hyperbolically, and usually expressing the notion of more than the usual number or more than I would like; -- "I've told you umpteen times not to do that." umpteenth. Ordinal of umpteen, with corresponding signification.…

Questionable; equivocal; indefinite; problematical. "The fashion of uncertain evils." Milton. From certain dangers to uncertain praise. Dryden.

To make indefinite; to obliterate or confuse the definition or limitations of.

Undefined; indefinite; not bounded by proper exceptions; as, unlimited terms. "Nothing doth more prevail than unlimited generalities." Hooker.

Yet more; indefinitely more; above; over. From twenty years old and upward. Num. i. 3. Upward of, or Upwards of, more than; above. I have been your wife in this obedience Upward of twenty years. Shak.

Unsettled; unfixed; undetermined; indefinite; ambiguous; as, a vague idea; a vague proposition. This faith is neither a mere fantasy of future glory, nor a vague ebullition of feeling. I. Taylor. The poet turned away, and gave himself up to a sort of vague revery, which he called thought. Hawthorne.…

f the force, of a line joining its point of application with a new position of that point indefinitely near to the first, to which the point is conceived to have been moved, without disturbing the equilibrium of the system, or the connections of its parts with each other. Strictly speaking, it is not a velocity but a l…

Whatever; whatsoever; what thing soever; -- used indefinitely. "What after so befall." Chaucer. Whether it were the shortness of his foresight, the strength of his will, . . . or what it was. Bacon.

A compound relative or indefinite pronoun, standing for any one which, whichever, that which, those which, the . . . which, and the like; as, take which you will.

To act the part of a woman in; -- with indefinite it. Daniel.