Search the Dictionary

Fitted to excite pity or sympathy; wretched; miserable; lamentable; sad; as, a piteous case. Spenser. The most piteous tale of Lear. Shak.

on; miserable; lamentable; piteous; as, pitiable persons; a pitiable condition; pitiable wretchedness.

Level land; usually, an open field or a broad stretch of land with an even surface, or a surface little varied by inequalities; as, the plain of Jordan; the American plains, or prairies. Descending fro the mountain into playn. Chaucer. Him the Ammonite Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain. Milton.…

An arrant coward; a dastard; a craven; a mean-spirited wretch. Shak.

Extended horizontally; stretched out.

The act of stretching forth.

To stretch out before. [R.] "Doomed to feel the great Idomeneus' portended steel." Pope.

A level stretch in a canal between locks.

of character; dignified bearing; proud delight; -- in a good sense. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride. Goldsmith. A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants. Macaulay.

To stretch or contract according to some rule or standard.

man of Attica, who tied his victims upon an iron bed, and, as the case required, either stretched or cut of their legs to adapt them to its length; -- whence the metaphorical phrase, the bed of Procrustes.

or decency; openly and shamelessly immoral or vicious; dissolute; as, profligate man or wretch. A race more profligate than we. Roscommon. Made prostitute and profligate muse. Dryden.

Stretched out; extended; especially, elongated in the direction of a line joining the poles; as, a prolate spheroid; -- opposed to oblate. Prolate cycloid. See the Note under Cycloid. -- Prolate ellipsoid or spheroid (Geom.), a figure generated by the revolution of an ellipse about its major axis. See Ellipsoid of rev…

Lying at length, or with the body extended on the ground or other surface; stretched out; as, to sleep prostrate Elyot. Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire. Milton.

To hold out; to stretch forth. [Obs.] With his protended lance he makes defence. Dryden .

as well as mechanical, it is easier to pull down than build up." Howell. " To raise the wretched, and pull down the proud." Roscommon. To pull a finch. See under Finch. To pull off, take or draw off.

To incite; to entice; to urge; to constrain; to oblige. These wretches put us upon all mischief. Swift. Put me not use the carnal weapon in my own defense. Sir W. Scott. Thank him who puts me, loath, to this revenge. Milton.

derably. "Quite amusing." Macaulay. He really looks quite concerned. Landor. The island stretches along the land and is quite close to it. Jowett (Thucyd. ).

An instrument or frame used for stretching, extending, retaining, or displaying, something. Specifically:

gether, forming a somewhat elliptical hoop, across which a network of catgut or cord is stretched. It is furnished with a handle, and is used for catching or striking a ball in tennis and similar games. Each one [of the Indians] has a bat curved like a crosier, and ending in a racket. Bancroft.