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To make a quick succession of sharp, inharmonious noises, as by the collision of hard and not very sonorous bodies shaken together; to clatter. And the rude hail in rattling tempest forms. Addison. 'T was but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. Byron.

To resort; to have recourse; to go for help. If, to avoid succession in eternal existence, they recur to the "punctum stans" of the schools, they will thereby very little help us to a more positive idea of infinite duration. Locke. Recurring decimal (Math.), a circulating decimal. See under Decimal. -- Recurring serie…

n; returning at stated intervals; steadily pursued; orderlly; methodical; as, the regular succession of day and night; regular habits.

e or restriction; to subject to governing principles or laws. The laws which regulate the successions of the seasons. Macaulay. The herdsmen near the frontier adjudicated their own disputes, and regulated their own police. Bancroft.

Doing the same thing over again; accomplishing a given result many times in succession; as, a repeating firearm; a repeating watch. Repeating circle. See the Note under Circle, n., 3. -- Repeating decimal (Arith.), a circulating decimal. See under Decimal. -- Repeating firearm, a firearm that may be discharged many t…

Apparently moving backward, and contrary to the succession of the signs, that is, from east to west, as a planet. Hutton. And if he be in the west side in that condition, then is he retrograde. Chaucer.

Hence, a right to future possession or enjoiment; succession. For even reversions are all begged before. Dryden.

Of or pertaining to a reversion; involving a reversion; to be enjoyed in succession, or after the termination of a particular estate; as, a reversionary interest or right.

a revolving body; the period made by the regular recurrence of a measure of time, or by a succession of similar events. "The short revolution of a day." Dryden.

th several chambers or barrels so arranged as to revolve on an axis, and be discharged in succession by the same lock; a repeater.

In the widest sense, a dividing into short portions by a regular succession of motions, impulses, sounds, accents, etc., producing an agreeable effect, as in music poetry, the dance, or the like.

A succession of confused or nonsencial statements; foolish talk; nonsense. [Colloq.] Often one's dear friend talks something which one scruples to call rigmarole. De Quincey.

ne's self, to wallow. -- To roll the eye, to direct its axis hither and thither in quick succession. -- To roll one's r's, to utter the letter r with a trill. [Colloq.]

J. Bourne. -- Rolling fire (Mil.), a discharge of firearms by soldiers in line, in quick succession, and in the order in which they stand. -- Rolling friction, that resistance to motion experienced by one body rolling upon another which arises from the roughness or other quality of the surfaces in contact. -- Rollin…

charges and substitutions. -- Rotation of crops, the practices of cultivating an orderly succession of different crops on the same land.

Going in a circle; following in rotation or succession; as, rotatory assembles. Burke.

To go out by rotation or succession; to rotate. [Obs.] Z. Grey.

Rotation, as in office; succession. Holyday.

To make a quick succession of small sounds, like the rubbing or moving of silk cloth or dry leaves. He is coming; I hear his straw rustle. Shak. Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk. Shak.

Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order; as, a scale of being. There is a certain scale of duties . . . which for want of studying in right order, all the world is in confusion. Milton.