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In knitting machines, a contrivance for depressing the sinkers successively by passing over them.

holds something else; as, the sockets of the teeth. His eyeballs in their hollow sockets sink. Dryden.

To support from sinking; to sustain with strength; to satisfy in part or for the time. He has devoured a whole loaf of bread and butter, and it has not staid his stomach for a minute. Sir W. Scott.

To sink when on the wing; to alight. And stoop with closing pinions from above. Dryden. Cowering low With blandishment, each bird stooped on his wing. Milton.

To sink or fall to the bottom; to settle, as lees.

To endure or undergo without sinking; to support; to sustain; to bear up under. Our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains. Milton.

celestial luminaries to receive no tincture, sullage, or difilement from the most noisome sinks and dunghills here below. South.

Eng.] Sump fuse, a fuse used in blasting under water. -- Sump men (Mining), the men who sink the sump in a mine.

imp. & p. p. of Sink. Sunk fence, a ditch with a retaining wall, used to divide lands without defacing a landscape; a ha-ha.

To keep from failing or sinking; to solace under affictive circumstances; to assist; to encourage; to defend; as, to support the courage or spirits.

Capable of being suspended; capable of being held from sinking.

Hence, to keep from sinking, as in despondence, or the like; to support. No comfortable expectations of another life to sustain him under the evils in this world. Tillotson.

To sink down by its weight; to sag. Sir H. Wotton. I swag as a fat person's belly swaggeth as he goeth. Palsgrave.

Inclined to swag; sinking, hanging, or leaning by its weight. Sir T. Browne.

To plunge or sink into a swamp.

To be supported by water or other fluid; not to sink; to float; as, any substance will swim, whose specific gravity is less than that of the fluid in which it is immersed.

To sink into a fainting fit, in which there is an apparent suspension of the vital functions and mental powers; to faint; -- often with away. The sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. Lam. ii. 11. The most in years . . . swooned first away for pain. Dryden. He seemed ready to swoon away in the surprise of joy. Ta…

The hold of a ship; a sink. [Obs.] Small drops of water that enter through a little crevice into the thurrok and into the bottom of a ship. Chaucer.

announce the death of a person. The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll. Shak. Now sink in sorrows with a tolling bell. Pope.

s, nettings made of chains or bars, which can be suspended around a vessel and allowed to sink beneath the surface of the water, as a protection against torpedoes.