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A wretched person; a person afflicted by any great misfortune. [Obs.] Spenser. The woeful words of a miser now despairing. Sir P. Sidney.

Very unhappy; wretched. What hopes delude thee, miserable man Dryden.

In a miserable; unhappily; calamitously; wretchedly; meanly. They were miserably entertained. Sir P. Sidney. The fifth was miserably stabbed to death. South.

Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe. Chaucer. Destruction and misery are in their ways. Rom. iii. 16.

One who misuses. "Wretched misusers of language." Coleridge.

Any copy, or resemblance, more or less exact. Thou seest thy wretched brother die, Who was the model of thy father's life. Shak.

life; monastic usage or customs; -- now usually applied by way of reproach. Miters, and wretched dead mediæval monkeries. Carlyle.

nting upon the mathematical relations of musical sounds. It consists of a single string stretched between two bridges, one or both of which are movable, and which stand upon a graduated rule for the purpose of readily changing and measuring the length of the part of the string between them.

A stiff, long saw, guided at the ends but not stretched in a gate. Muley axle (Railroad), a car axle without collars at the outer ends of the journals. Forney.

t threadlike axis cylinder which is continuous the whole length of the fiber. -- Nerve stretching (Med.), the operation of stretching a nerve in order to remedy diseases such as tetanus, which are supposed to be influenced by the condition of the nerve or its connections.

hat line or plane, in a beam under transverse pressure, at which the fibers are neither stretched nor compressed, or where the longitudinal stress is zero. See Axis. -- Neutral equilibrium (Mech.), the kind of equilibrium of a body so placed that when moved slighty it neither tends to return to its former position not…

Not extensile; incapable of being stretched.

A sycophantic servant. [Obs.] Silly ducking observants, That stretch their duties nicely. Shak.

e better of; to surmount; to conquer; to subdue; as, to overcome enemies in battle. This wretched woman overcome Of anguish, rather than of crime, hath been. Spenser.

To stretch or strain too much; as to overstrain one's nerves. Ayliffe.

Extended; spread out; stretched.

A stretching and stiffening of the trunk and extremities, as when fatigued and drowsy.

A round-edged, or hemispherical, end to the head of a hammer or sledge, used to stretch or bend metal by indentation.

s of sounding bodies by optical means. It consists of a tube across the end of which is stretched a film of soap solution thin enough to give colored bands, the form and position of which are affected by sonorous vibrations.

To spare; to be niggardly; to be covetous. Gower. The wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare. Franklin. To pinch at, to find fault with; to take exception to. [Obs.] Chaucer.