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One who, or that which, backs; especially one who backs a person or thing in a contest.

A men living in the forest in or beyond the new settlements, especially on the western frontiers of the older portions of the United States. Fisher Ames.

sh of a pig salted or fresh. Bacon beetle (Zoöl.), a beetle (Dermestes lardarius) which, especially in the larval state, feeds upon bacon, woolens, furs, etc. See Dermestes. -- To save one's bacon, to save one's self or property from harm or less. [Colloq.]

Barren regions, especially in the western United States, where horizontal strata (Tertiary deposits) have been often eroded into fantastic forms, and much intersected by canons, and where lack of wood, water, and forage increases the difficulty of traversing the country, whence the name, first given by the Canadian Fre…

licensed dealer in commodities used for food; a hawker; a huckster; -- formerly applied especially to one who bought grain in one place and sold it in another. [Now dialectic, Eng.]

To deliver, as goods in trust, for some special object or purpose, upon a contract, expressed or implied, that the trust shall be faithfully executed on the part of the bailee, or person intrusted; as, to bail cloth to a tailor to be made into a garment; to bail goods to a carrier. Blackstone. Kent.…

Special bail in court to abide the judgment. Bouvier.

Originally, a person put in charge of something especially, a chief officer, magistrate, or keeper, as of a county, town, hundred, or castle; one to whom power Abbott. Lausanne is under the canton of Berne, governed by a bailiff sent every three years from the senate. Addison.

A delivery of goods or money by one person to another in trust, for some special purpose, upon a contract, expressed or implied, that the trust shall be faithfully executed. Blackstone.

A worthless mixture, especially of liquors. Indeed beer, by a mixture of wine, hath lost both name and nature, and is called balderdash. Taylor (Drink and Welcome).

, and filled with hydrogen gas or heated air, so as to rise and float in the atmosphere; especially, one with a car attached for aërial navigation.

A bank, especially that of Venice.

A company of persons united in any common design, especially a body of armed men. Troops of horsemen with his bands of foot. Shak.

The slope of a bank, especially of the bank of a steam.

portion to its breadth or thickness, used as a lever and for various other purposes, but especially for a hindrance, obstruction, or fastening; as, the bars of a fence or gate; the bar of a door. Thou shalt make bars of shittim wood. Ex. xxvi. 26.

make a short, loud, explosive noise with the vocal organs; -- said of some animals, but especially of dogs.

The woolly-skinned rhizoma or rootstock of a fern (Dicksonia barometz), which, when specially prepared and inverted, somewhat resembles a lamb; -- called also Scythian lamb.

A building for soldiers, especially when in garrison. Commonly in the pl., originally meaning temporary huts, but now usually applied to a permanent structure or set of buildings. He lodged in a miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches and thatched with straw. Gibbon.

f a wall, pier, or column, when treated as a separate feature, usually in projection, or especially ornamented.

A combining form, especially in anatomical and botanical words, to indicate the base or position at or near a base; forming a base; as, basibranchials, the most ventral of the cartilages or bones of the branchial arches; basicranial, situated at the base of the cranium; basifacial, basitemporal, etc.…