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Broken off; very steep, or craggy, as rocks, precipices, banks; precipitous; steep; as, abrupt places. "Tumbling through ricks abrupt," Thomson.

A sudden breaking off; a violent separation of bodies. Woodward.

In an abrupt manner; without giving notice, or without the usual forms; suddenly.

The state of being abrupt or broken; craggedness; ruggedness; steepness.

A figure of speech employed when a speaker having begun to say a thing stops abruptly: thus, "He is a man of so much honor and candor, and of such generosity -- but I need say no more."

Terminated abruptly by a small, distinct point, as a leaf.

To stop abruptly and stand still obstinately; to jib; to stop short; to swerve; as, the horse balks.

Terminating abruptly, as if bitten off; premorse.

Abrupt; roughly frank; unceremonious; blunt; brusque; as, a bluff answer; a bluff manner of talking; a bluff sea captain. "Bluff King Hal." Sir W. Scott. There is indeed a bluff pertinacity which is a proper defense in a moment of surprise. I. Taylor.

Abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious; wanting the forms of civility; rough in manners or speech. "Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior." "A plain, blunt man." Shak.

In a blunt manner; coarsely; plainly; abruptly; without delicacy, or the usual forms of civility. Sometimes after bluntly giving his opinions, he would quietly lay himself asleep until the end of their deliberations. Jeffrey.

Anything that hangs so as to play loosely, or with a short abrupt motion, as at the end of a string; a pendant; as, the bob at the end of a kite's tail. In jewels dressed and at each ear a bob. Dryden.

Steep; abrupt; prominent. Where the bold cape its warning forehead rears. Trumbull.

To start forth like a bolt or arrow; to spring abruptly; to come or go suddenly; to dart; as, to bolt out of the room. This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, . . . And oft out of a bush doth bolt. Drayton.

n rivers of peculiar configuration or location, in one or more waves which present a very abrupt front of considerable height, dangerous to shipping, as at the mouth of the Amazon, in South America, the Hoogly and Indus, in India, and the Tsien-tang, in China.

To make an abrupt or sudden change; to change the gait; as, to break into a run or gallop.

Rough and prompt in manner; blunt; abrupt; hluff; as, a brusque man; a brusque style.

To send off abruptly or without ceremony. They unmercifully bundled me and my gallant second into our own hackney coach. T. Hook. To bundle off, to send off in a hurry, or without ceremony. -- To bundle one's self up, to wrap one's self up warmly or cumbrously.

A detached low mountain, or high rising abruptly from the general level of the surrounding plain; -- applied to peculiar elevations in the Rocky Mountain region. The creek . . . passes by two remarkable buttes of red conglomerate. Ruxton.

An abrupt change in feeling, opinion, or action, proceeding from some whim or fancy; a freak; a notion. "Caprices of appetite." W. Irving.