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Battering-ram

An engine used in ancient times to beat down the walls of besieged places.

Battery

The act of battering or beating.

Batting

The act of one who bats; the management of a bat in playing games of ball.

Battle

To assail in battle; to fight.

battle-hardened

Experienced in combat, and therefore more effective at fighting; -- used mostly of infantry troops; as, battle-hardened veterans.

battledoor

An instrument, with a handle and a flat part covered with parchment or crossed with catgut, used to strike a shuttlecock in play; also, the play of battledoor and shuttlecock.

battlefront

the line along which opposing armies face each other.

battleground

a region where a battle is fought; same as battlefield.

Battlement

One of the solid upright parts of a parapet in ancient fortifications. The whole parapet, consisting of alternate solids and open spaces. At first purely a military feature, afterwards copied on a smaller scale with decorative features, as for churches.

Battler Batteler

A student at Oxford who is supplied with provisions from the buttery; formerly, one who paid for nothing but what he called for, answering nearly to a sizar at Cambridge.

Battology

A needless repetition of words in speaking or writing.

Battue

The act of beating the woods, bushes, etc., for game. The game itself. The wanton slaughter of game.

Batture

An elevated river bed or sea bed.

Battuta

The measuring of time by beating.

Batty

Belonging to, or resembling, a bat.

Batule

A springboard in a circus or gymnasium; -- called also batule board.

Batz

A small copper coin, with a mixture of silver, formerly current in some parts of Germany and Switzerland. It was worth about four cents.

Bauble

A trifling piece of finery; a gewgaw; that which is gay and showy without real value; a cheap, showy plaything.

baud

A unit of transmission speed for information conveyed over a digital communications channel, usually taken as equal to the number of bits of information transmitted per second. The speed in bauds indicates the number of signalling events per second; however, since it is necessary in most cases to transmit control information along with the data, the data signalling rate may be smaller than the baud rate.

Baudekin

The richest kind of stuff used in garments in the Middle Ages, the web being gold, and the woof silk, with embroidery; -- made originally at Baghdad.

Baume

Designating or conforming to either of the scales used by the French chemist Antoine Baum/ in the graduation of his hydrometers; of or relating to Baum/'s scales or hydrometers. There are two Baum/ hydrometers. One, which is used with liquids heavier than water, sinks to 0/ in pure water, and to 15/ in a 15 per cent salt solution; the other, for liquids lighter than water, sinks to 0/ in a 10 per cent salt solution and to 10/ in pure water. In both cases the graduation, based on the distance between these fundamental points, is continued along the stem as far as desired.

Baunscheidtism

A form of acupuncture, followed by the rubbing of the part with a stimulating fluid.

Bavaria

A state in southern Germany.

Bavarian

Of or pertaining to Bavaria. A native or an inhabitant of Bavaria.

Bavin

A fagot of brushwood, or other light combustible matter, for kindling fires; refuse of brushwood.

Bawcock

A fine fellow; -- a term of endearment.

Bawd

To procure women for lewd purposes.

Bawdry

The practice of procuring women for the gratification of lust.

Bawdy

Dirty; foul; -- said of clothes.

Bawdyhouse

A house of prostitution; a house of ill fame; a brothel.

Bawl

A loud, prolonged cry; an outcry.

Bawn

An inclosure with mud or stone walls, for keeping cattle; a fortified inclosure.

Baxter

A baker; originally, a female baker.

Bay

To dam, as water; -- with up or back.

Bay-antler

The second tine of a stag's horn. See under Antler.

Baya

The East Indian weaver bird (Ploceus Philippinus).

Bayadere

A female dancer in the East Indies.

Bayamo

A violent thunder squall occurring on the south coast of Cuba, esp. near Bayamo. The gusts, called bayamo winds, are modified foehn winds.

Bayard

Properly, a bay horse, but often any horse. Commonly in the phrase blind bayard, an old blind horse.

Bayatte Bayad

A large, edible, siluroid fish of the Nile, of two species (Bagrina bayad and Bagrina docmac).

Bayberry

The fruit of the bay tree or Laurus nobilis. A tree of the West Indies related to the myrtle (Pimenta acris). The fruit of Myrica cerifera (wax myrtle); the shrub itself; -- called also candleberry tree.

Bayed

Having a bay or bays.

Bayman

In the United States navy, a sick-bay nurse; -- now officially designated as hospital apprentice.

Bayou

An inlet from the Gulf of Mexico, from a lake, or from a large river, sometimes sluggish, sometimes without perceptible movement except from tide and wind.

Bazar Bazaar

In the East, an exchange, marketplace, or assemblage of shops where goods are exposed for sale.

bdellium

An unidentified substance mentioned in the Bible (Gen. ii. 12, and Num. xi. 7), variously taken to be a gum, a precious stone, or pearls, or perhaps a kind of amber found in Arabia.

Bdelloidea

The order of Annulata which includes the leeches. See Hirudinea.

Bdellometer

A cupping glass to which are attached a scarificator and an exhausting syringe.

Bdellomorpha

An order of Nemertina, including the large leechlike worms (Malacobdella) often parasitic in clams.

Be

To exist actually, or in the world of fact; to have existence.

Be-all

The whole; all that is to be.

Beach

To run or drive (as a vessel or a boat) upon a beach; to strand; as, to beach a ship.

beachhead

an area in hostile territory that has been occupied and is held to allow aditional troops and supplies to enter.

beachlike

having an extensive gently sloping area of sand or gravel; -- of a shore or shoreline. Opposite of cliffy.

Beachy

Having a beach or beaches; formed by a beach or beaches; shingly.

Beacon

To give light to, as a beacon; to light up; to illumine.

Beaconage

Money paid for the maintenance of a beacon; also, beacons, collectively.

Bead

To form beadlike bubbles.

beaded

imp. p. p. of bead, v. t. i..

Beading

Molding in imitation of beads.

Beadle

A messenger or crier of a court; a servitor; one who cites or bids persons to appear and answer; -- called also an apparitor or summoner.

Beadlery

Office or jurisdiction of a beadle.

Beadleship

The state of being, or the personality of, a beadle.

Beadroll

A catalogue of persons, for the rest of whose souls a certain number of prayers are to be said or counted off on the beads of a chaplet; hence, a catalogue in general.

Beadsnake

A small poisonous snake of North America (Elaps fulvius), banded with yellow, red, and black.

Beady

Resembling beads; small, round, and glistening.

Beagle

A small hound, or hunting dog, twelve to fifteen inches high, used in hunting hares and other small game. See Illustration in Appendix.

Beak

The bill or nib of a bird, consisting of a horny sheath, covering the jaws. The form varies much according to the food and habits of the bird, and is largely used in the classification of birds. A similar bill in other animals, as the turtles. The long projecting sucking mouth of some insects, and other invertebrates, as in the Hemiptera. The upper or projecting part of the shell, near the hinge of a bivalve. The prolongation of certain univalve shells containing the canal.

Beaked

Having a beak or a beaklike point; beak-shaped.

Beaker

A large drinking cup, with a wide mouth, supported on a foot or standard.

Beakhead

An ornament used in rich Norman doorways, resembling a head with a beak.

Beakiron

A bickern; a bench anvil with a long beak, adapted to reach the interior surfaces of sheet metal ware; the horn of an anvil.

Beal

To gather matter; to swell and come to a head, as a pimple.

Beam

To emit beams of light.

Beambird

A small European flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola), so called because it often nests on a beam in a building.

Beamed

Furnished with beams, as the head of a stag.

Beamy

Emitting beams of light; radiant; shining.

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