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Short-winged; -- applied to birds which can not fly, owing to their short wings, as the ostrich, cassowary, and emu.

Short-billed; having a short beak.

Shortness of duration; briefness of time; as, the brevity of human life.

spension bridge. See under Suspension. -- Trestle bridge, a bridge formed of a series of short, simple girders resting on trestles. -- Tubular bridge, a bridge in the form of a hollow trunk or rectangular tube, with cellular walls made of iron plates riveted together, as the Britannia bridge over the Menai Strait, an…

Short in duration. How brief the life of man. Shak.

colonel, and below a major general. He commands a brigade, and is sometimes called, by a shortening of his title, simple a brigadier.

A short, stiff, coarse hair, as on the back of swine.

An elementary principle or maximum; a short, proverbial rule, in law, ethics, or metaphysics. The legal brocard, "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," is a rule not more applicable to other witness than to consciousness. Sir W. Hamilton.

Having short breath or disordered respiration, as a horse.

e carriage, with seats inside for two or four, and the fore wheels so arranged as to turn short.

A short contest, or trial, of speed. Let us enjoy a brush across the country. Cornhill Mag. Electrical brush, a form of the electric discharge characterized by a brushlike appearance of luminous rays diverging from an electrified body.

A genus (Rhamnus) of shrubs or trees. The shorter branches of some species terminate in long spines or thorns. See Rhamnus. Sea buckthorn, a plant of the genus Hippophaë.

Of the color of buff. Buff coat, a close, military outer garment, with short sleeves, and laced tightly over the chest, made of buffalo skin, or other thick and elastic material, worn by soldiers in the 17th century as a defensive covering. -- Buff jerkin, originally, a leather waistcoat; afterward, one of cloth of a…

he Columbatz fly is a species with similar habits. -- Buffalo grass (Bot.), a species of short, sweet grass (Buchloë dactyloides), from two to four inches high, covering the prairies on which the buffaloes, or bisons, feed. [U.S.] -- Buffalo nut (Bot.), the oily and drupelike fruit of an American shrub (Pyrularia olei…

A copper instrument of the horn quality of tone, shorter and more conical that the trumpet, sometimes keyed; formerly much used in military bands, very rarely in the orchestra; now superseded by the cornet; -- called also the Kent bugle.

Having a short and thick neck like that of a bull. Sir W. Scott.

A nail with a round head and short shank, tinned and lacquered.

A mixture of shot, nails, stones, pieces of old iron, etc., fired from a cannon at short range, in an emergency. [R.]

ntion, or labor of any one, as his principal concern or interest, whether for a longer or shorter time; constant employment; regular occupation; as, the business of life; business before pleasure. Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business Luke ii. 49.

But if, unless. [Obs.] Chaucer. But this I read, that but if remedy Thou her afford, full shortly I her dead shall see. Spenser.