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melt, dissolve, or become fluid; to soften; -- said of that which is frozen; as, the ice thaws.

Liquefying by heat after having been frozen; thawing; melting.

h brass or paper. The frame of burnished steel, that east a glare From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air. Dryden. Now the village windows blaze, Burnished by the setting sun. Cunningham. Burnishing machine, a machine for smoothing and polishing by compression, as in making paper collars.

wreck. Cat's cradle. See under Cat. -- Cradle hole, a sunken place in a road, caused by thawing, or by travel over a soft spot. -- Cradle scythe, a broad scythe used in a cradle for cutting grain.

To melt; to dissolve; to thaw. [Obs.]

ate of being dissolved, or of undergoing liquefaction. A man of continual dissolution and thaw. Shak.

ces; hence, sometimes, to melt, or dissolve. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Shak. Ye immortal souls, who once were men, And now resolved to elements again. Dryden.

To fall or sink suddenly through or in, when walking on a surface, as on thawing snow or ice, partly frozen ground, a bog, etc., not strong enough to bear the person. The latter walk on a bottomless quag, into which unawares they may slump. Barrow.

To thaw; to become liquid again. Tennyson.

To thaw. [Obs.]

An American bird (Antrostomus vociferus) allied to the nighthawk and goatsucker; -- so called in imitation of the peculiar notes which it utters in the evening. [Written also whippowil.]