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A pavilion or portable lodge consisting of skins, canvas, or some strong cloth, stretched and sustained by poles, -- used for sheltering persons from the weather, especially soldiers in camp. Within his tent, large as is a barn. Chaucer.

A machine or frame for stretching cloth by means of hooks, called tenter-hooks, so that it may dry even and square. Tenter ground, a place where tenters are erected. -- Tenter-hook, a sharp, hooked nail used for fastening cloth on a tenter. -- To be on the tenters, or on the tenter-hooks, to be on the stretch; to be…

Stiff; stretched; strained. [Obs.] Johnson.

Not slack or loose; firmly stretched; taut; -- applied to a rope, chain, or the like, extended or stretched out.

omona's arbor smiled. Milton. I'll to him again, . . . He'll tell me all his purpose. She stretched her arms to heaven. Dryden.

Stretched tight; taut. [R.] Yet holds he them with tortestrein. Emerson.

To keep on the stretch, as a bow. [Obs.] The bow tortureth the string. Bacon.

To place upon a tree; to fit with a tree; to stretch upon a tree; as, to tree a boot. See Tree, n., 3.

To have a particular direction; to run; to stretch; to tend; as, the shore of the sea trends to the southwest.

crossed by a double elastic fiber. The spider holds the thread at the apex of the web and stretches it tight, but lets go and springs the net when an insect comes in contact with it.

o turn a flange (Mech.), to form a flange on, as around a metal sheet or boiler plate, by stretching, bending, and hammering, or rolling the metal. -- To turn against. (a) To direct against; as, to turn one's arguments against himself. (b) To make unfavorable or hostile to; as, to turn one's friends against him. -- T…

A harsh, quick sound, like that made by a stretched string when pulled and suddenly let go; as, the twang of a bowstring.

To stretch, as a skin over the head of a drum; to make into a drum or drumhead, or cause to act or sound like a drum. [Obs.] "Tympanized, as other saints of God were." Oley.

To separate, part, or open, as anything fastened with glue. She stretches, gapes, unglues her eyes, And asks if it be time to rise. Swift.

Stretched out face upward; flat on the back. [Obs.] " He lay upright." Chaucer. Upright drill (Mach.), a drilling machine having the spindle vertical.

[Archaic] "[/Angels] on the air plumy vans received him. " Milton. He wheeled in air, and stretched his vans in vain; His vans no longer could his flight sustain. Dryden.

To move to and fro, or from side to side, as a pendulum, an elastic rod, or a stretched string, when disturbed from its position of rest; to swing; to oscillate.

ons from its position of equilibrium, when that equilibrium has been disturbed, as when a stretched cord or other body produces musical notes, or particles of air transmit sounds to the ear. The path of the particle may be in a straight line, in a circular arc, or in any curve whatever.