Search the Dictionary

A dry measure of four bushels, or half a quarter. [Written also comb.]

tooth, one of the four teeth which come in a horse's mouth at the age of four years and a half, one on each side of the upper and of the lower jaw, between the middle teeth and the tushes.

A Hindoo measure of distance, varying from one and a half to two English miles. Whitworth.

A diminutive of the bendlet, containing one half its area or one quarter the area of the bend. When a single cottise is used alone it is often called a cost. See also Couple-close.

metimes almost two inches long; short-staple, from two thirds of an inch to an inch and a half.

darkly. We 'll couch in the castle ditch, till we see the light of our fairies. Shak. The half-hidden, hallf-revealed wonders, that yet couch beneath the words of the Scripture. I. Taylor.

. Coy, and difficult to win. Cowper. Coy and furtive graces. W. Irving. Nor the coy maid, half willings to be pressed, Shall kiss the cup, to pass it to the rest. Goldsmith.

A time note, with a stem, having one fourth the value of a semibreve, one half that of a minim, and twice that of a quaver; a quarter note.

A bulkhead on the forecastle and half deck of a ship.

nother when the contest is ended. -- To take up cudgels for, to engage in a contest in behalf of (some one or something).

A small portion of bread or beer; the quantity bought with a farthing or half farthing. [Obs.]

ncy to form complex compounds. The name is also applied to the univalent radical, CN (the half molecule of cyanogen proper), which was one of the first compound radicals recognized.

or 500. in this use it is not the initial of any word, or even strictly a letter, but one half of the sign

who is a lady; a womam in authority; especially, a lady. Then shall these lords do vex me half so much, As that proud dame, the lord protector's wife. Shak.

A decade. Averill was a decad and a half his elder. Tennyson.

rage. For small errors they whole plays decry. Dryden. Measures which are extolled by one half of the kingdom are naturally decried by the other. Addison.

tract; -- often with from or out of. Deduct what is but vanity, or dress. Pope. Two and a half per cent should be deducted out of the pay of the foreign troops. Bp. Burnet. We deduct from the computation of our years that part of our time which is spent in . . . infancy. Norris.

A prefix, signifying half.

Half relief; sculpture in relief of which the figures project from the background by one half their full roundness.

A half bastion, or that part of a bastion consisting of one face and one flank.