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That which falls in drops; the excrement or dung of animals. Dropping bottle, an instrument used to supply small quantities of a fluid to a test tube or other vessel. -- Dropping fire, a continued irregular discharge of firearms. -- Dropping tube, a tube for ejecting any liquid in drops.

In drops.

The habit of lurking about dwelling houses, and other places where persons meet fro private intercourse, secretly listening to what is said, and then tattling it abroad. The offense is indictable at common law. Wharton.

The dropping of a letter or syllable from the beginning of a word; e. g., cute for acute.

Shortened by dropping a letter or a syllable from the beginning of a word; as, an aphetic word or form. -- A*phet"ic*al*ly, adv. New Eng. Dict.

ing. The poets represented her a rising out of the ocean, in a chariot, with rosy fingers dropping gentle dew.

old-colored spangles. It was produced in the first place by the accidental (par aventure) dropping of some brass filings into a pot of melted glass.

aled glass which will fly into pieces when its surface is scratched by a hard body, as by dropping into it a fragment of flint; whereas a bullet may be dropped into it without injury.

sness or life, as a fainting person. (b) (Naut.) To check the course of, as of a ship, by dropping the anchor, or by counterbracing the sails so as to keep her nearly stationary (she is then said to lie to). (c) To cause (a vessel) to lie to, as by firing across her course. (d) To apply a rope to the capstan. -- To br…

Dropping off or disappearing early, as the calyx of a poppy, or the gills of a tadpole.

rom a house; to cast forth; to expel; to utter. -- To cast the lead (Naut.), to sound by dropping the lead to the botton. -- To cast the water (Med.), to examine the urine for signs of disease. [Obs.]. -- To cast up. (a) To throw up; to raise. (b) To compute; to reckon, as the cost. (c) To vomit. (d) To twit with; t…

Divination by dropping melted wax in water.

To put on the other tack by dropping the lee anchor as soon as the wind is out of the sails (which brings the vessel's head to the wind), and by cutting the cable as soon as she pays off on the other tack. Clubhauling is attempted only in an exigency.

A disease affecting grapes, esp. in California, manifested by the premature dropping of the fruit.

t of civility, respect, or reverence, made by women, consisting of a slight depression or dropping of the body, with bending of the kness. [Written also curtsy.] The lady drops a courtesy in token of obedience, and the ceremony proceeds as usual. Golgsmith.

gate Of Eden stood disconsolate. Moore. The ladies and the knights, no shelter nigh, Were dropping wet, disconsolate and wan. Dryden.

To become emptied of liquor by flowing or dropping; as, let the vessel stand and drain.

Act of dropping; sudden fall or descent. Ague drop, Black drop. See under Ague, Black. -- Drop by drop, in small successive quantities; in repeated portions. "Made to taste drop by drop more than the bitterness of death." Burke. -- Drop curtain. See Drop, n.,

A dropping tube.

A sudden inclination of the bead or dropping of the person, resembling the motion of a duck in water. Here be, without duck or nod, Other trippings to be trod. Milton. Bombay duck (Zoöl.), a fish. See Bummalo. -- Buffel duck, or Spirit duck. See Buffel duck. -- Duck ant (Zoöl.), a species of white ant in Jamaica whic…