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To injure, as a lance, without breaking it; also, to break, as a lance, but usually in an unknightly or unscientific manner. [Obs.] Do not fear; I have A staff to taint, and bravely. Massinger.

To meddle so as to alter, injure, or vitiate a thing.

, a board or tray for holding a tea set. -- Tea bug (Zoöl.), an hemipterous insect which injures the tea plant by sucking the juice of the tender leaves. -- Tea caddy, a small box for holding tea. -- Tea chest, a small, square wooden case, usually lined with sheet lead or tin, in which tea is imported from China. -…

To excite; to provoke; to vex; to affict; to injure. [Obs.] Piers Plowman.

Easily impressed, broken, bruised, or injured; not firm or hard; delicate; as, tender plants; tender flesh; tender fruit.

In a tender manner; with tenderness; mildly; gently; softly; in a manner not to injure or give pain; with pity or affection; kindly. Chaucer.

To strike, blast, or injure by, or as by, lightning. [R.] Sir P. Sidney.

their dress is tidy; the apartments are well furnished and tidy. A tidy man, that tened [injured] me never. Piers Plowman.

A genus of small hemipterous insects which injure trees by sucking the sap from the leaves. See Illustration in Appendix.

; a flood; as, a torrent of vices; a torrent of eloquence. At length, Erasmus, that great injured name, . . . Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age. Pope.

ll leaping hemipterous insects which live chiefly on the branches and twigs of trees, and injure them by sucking the sap. Many of them are very odd in shape, the prothorax being often prolonged upward or forward in the form of a spine or crest. -- Tree jobber (Zoöl.), a woodpecker. [Obs.] -- Tree kangaroo. (Zoöl.) See…

To commit any offense, or to do any act that injures or annoys another; to violate any rule of rectitude, to the injury of another; hence, in a moral sense, to transgress voluntarily any divine law or command; to violate any known rule of duty; to sin; -- often followed by against. In the time of his distress did he tr…

le (Haltica, or Phyllotreta, striolata), which feeds upon the turnip, and often seriously injures it. It is black with a stripe of yellow on each elytron. The name is also applied to several other small insects which are injurious to turnips. See Illust. under Flea-beetle. -- Turnip fly. (Zoöl.) (a) The turnip flea. (…

To injure by working secretly; to destroy or overthrow by clandestine measure; to undermine. But thou from loving England art so far, That thou hast underwrought his lawful king. Shak.

Capable of being violated, broken, or injured. -- Vi"o*la*bly, adv.

murder. "She . . . did violence on herself." Shak. -- To do violence to, to outrage; to injure; as, he does violence to his own opinions.

Very bitter in enmity; actuated by a desire to injure; malignant; as, a virulent invective.

To make vicious, faulty, or imperfect; to render defective; to injure the substance or qualities of; to impair; to contaminate; to spoil; as, exaggeration vitiates a style of writing; sewer gas vitiates the air. A will vitiated and growth out of love with the truth disposes the understanding to error and delusion. Sout…

To damage, impair, or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, etc., to go to decay.

small American sawflies of the genus Dolerus, as D. sericeus and D. arvensis, whose larvæ injure the stems or heads of wheat.