CALKING n.
The act or process of making seems tight, as in ships, or of furnishing with calks, as a shoe, or copying, as a drawing. Calking iron, a tool like a chisel, used in calking ships, tightening seams in ironwork, etc. Their left hand does the calking iron guide. Dryden.
CATKIN n.
An ament; a species of inflorescence, consisting of a slender axis with many unisexual apetalous flowers along its sides, as in the willow and poplar, and (as to the staminate flowers) in the chestnut, oak, hickory, etc. -- so called from its resemblance to a cat's tail. See Illust. of Ament.
CUCKING STOOL n.
A kind of chair formerly used for punishing scolds, and also dishonest tradesmen, by fastening them in it, usually in front of their doors, to be pelted and hooted at by the mob, but sometimes to be taken to the water and ducked; -- called also a castigatory, a tumbrel, and a trebuchet; and often, but not so correctly,…