n. pl. (Zool.) Various kinds of plant lice or aphids tended by ants for the sake of the honeydew which they secrete; plural of ant cow. See Aphips. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Cf. Addle mire. ] (Mining) Rubbish or refuse consisting of broken rock containing little or no ore. Weale. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Back, a. + settler. ] One living in the back or outlying districts of a community. [ 1913 Webster ]

The English backsettlers of Leinster and Munster. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Fertile. See Battel, a. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OE. bataille, bataile, F. bataille battle, OF., battle, battalion, fr. L. battalia, battualia, the fighting and fencing exercises of soldiers and gladiators, fr. batuere to strike, beat. Cf. Battalia, 1st Battel, and see Batter, v. t. ] 1. A general action, fight, or encounter, in which all the divisions of an army are or may be engaged; an engagement; a combat. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A struggle; a contest; as, the battle of life. [ 1913 Webster ]

The whole intellectual battle that had at its center the best poem of the best poet of that day. H. Morley. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A division of an army; a battalion. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

The king divided his army into three battles. Bacon. [ 1913 Webster ]

The cavalry, by way of distinction, was called the battle, and on it alone depended the fate of every action. Robertson. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. The main body, as distinct from the van and rear; battalia. [ Obs. ] Hayward. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Battle is used adjectively or as the first part of a self-explaining compound; as, battle brand, a “brand” or sword used in battle; battle cry; battlefield; battle ground; battle array; battle song. [ 1913 Webster ]

Battle piece, a painting, or a musical composition, representing a battle. --
Battle royal. (a) A fight between several gamecocks, where the one that stands longest is the victor. Grose. (b) A contest with fists or cudgels in which more than two are engaged; a mêlée. Thackeray. --
Drawn battle, one in which neither party gains the victory. --
To give battle, to attack an enemy. --
To join battle, to meet the attack; to engage in battle. --
Pitched battle, one in which the armies are previously drawn up in form, with a regular disposition of the forces. --
Wager of battle. See under Wager, n. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Conflict; encounter; contest; action. Battle, Combat, Fight, Engagement. These words agree in denoting a close encounter between contending parties. Fight is a word of less dignity than the others. Except in poetry, it is more naturally applied to the encounter of a few individuals, and more commonly an accidental one; as, a street fight. A combat is a close encounter, whether between few or many, and is usually premeditated. A battle is commonly more general and prolonged. An engagement supposes large numbers on each side, engaged or intermingled in the conflict. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. [ imp. & p. p. Battled p. pr. & vb. n. Battling. ] [ F. batailler, fr. bataille. See Battle, n. ] To join in battle; to contend in fight; as, to battle over theories. [ 1913 Webster ]

To meet in arms, and battle in the plain. Prior. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. To assail in battle; to fight. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } n. (Mil.) A kind of broadax formerly used as an offensive weapon. [ 1913 Webster ]

p. p. Embattled. [ Poetic ] Tennyson. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OE. batyldour. A corrupted form of uncertain origin; cf. Sp. batallador a great combatant, he who has fought many battles, Pg. batalhador, Pr. batalhador, warrior, soldier, fr. L. battalia; or cf. Pr. batedor batlet, fr. batre to beat, fr. L. batuere. See Battle, n. ] 1. 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. [ Also spelled battledore. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

2. [ OE. battleder. ] A child's hornbook. [ Obs. ] Halliwell. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. same as battledoor.
Syn. -- battledore and shuttlecock. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. a region where a battle is fought.
Syn. -- battleground, field of battle, field. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. the line along which opposing armies face each other.
Syn. -- front, front line. [ WordNet 1.5 #here ]

n. a region where a battle is fought; same as battlefield.
Syn. -- battlefield, field of battle, field. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

a. Experienced in combat, and therefore more effective at fighting; -- used mostly of infantry troops; as, battle-hardened veterans.
Syn. -- combat-hardened, combat-tested. [ PJC ]

n. [ OE. batelment; cf. OF. bataillement combat, fr. batailler, also OF. bastillier, bateillier, to fortify. Cf. Battle, n., Bastile, Bastion. ] (Arch.) (a) One of the solid upright parts of a parapet in ancient fortifications. (b) pl. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Having battlements. [ 1913 Webster ]

A battlemented portal. Sir W. Scott. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } n. [ See 2d Battel, n. ] 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. Wright. [ 1913 Webster ]

. (Mil.) The range within which the fire of small arms is very destructive. With the magazine rifle, this is six hundred yards. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

. (Nav.) [ shortened from line-of-battle ship, i.e. the most heavily armored ship suited to be in the front line of a naval battle. ] An armor-plated warship built of steel and heavily armed, generally having over ten thousand tons displacement, and intended to be fit to combat the heaviest enemy ships in line of battle; the most heavily armed and armored class of warship at any given time. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Belittled p. pr. & vb. n. Belittling. ] To make little or less in a moral sense; to speak of in a depreciatory or contemptuous way. T. Jefferson. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. To make rattle; to scold vociferously; to cry down. [ Obs. ] Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

, n. 1. (Bot.) an annual Eurasian plant (Centaurea cyanus) which grows in grain fields; -- called also bachelor's button. It receives its name from its blue bottle-shaped flowers. Varieties cultivated in North America have showy heads of blue or purple or pink or white flowers
Syn. -- cornflower, bachelor's button. [ 1913 Webster + WordNet 1.5 ]

2. (Zool.) A large and troublesome species of blowfly (Musca vomitoria). Its body is steel blue. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OE. bote, botelle, OF. botel, bouteille, F. bouteille, fr. LL. buticula, dim. of butis, buttis, butta, flask. Cf. Butt a cask. ] 1. A hollow vessel, usually of glass or earthenware (but formerly of leather), with a narrow neck or mouth, for holding liquids. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. The contents of a bottle; as much as a bottle contains; as, to drink a bottle of wine. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Fig.: Intoxicating liquor; as, to drown one's reason in the bottle. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Bottle is much used adjectively, or as the first part of a compound. [ 1913 Webster ]

Bottle ale, bottled ale. [ Obs. ] Shak. --
Bottle brush, a cylindrical brush for cleansing the interior of bottles. --
Bottle fish (Zool.), a kind of deep-sea eel (Saccopharynx ampullaceus), remarkable for its baglike gullet, which enables it to swallow fishes two or three times its won size. --
Bottle flower. (Bot.) Same as Bluebottle. --
Bottle glass, a coarse, green glass, used in the manufacture of bottles. Ure. --
Bottle gourd (Bot.), the common gourd or calabash (Lagenaria Vulgaris), whose shell is used for bottles, dippers, etc. --
Bottle grass (Bot.), a nutritious fodder grass (Setaria glauca and Setaria viridis); -- called also foxtail, and green foxtail. --
Bottle tit (Zool.), the European long-tailed titmouse; -- so called from the shape of its nest. --
Bottle tree (Bot.), an Australian tree (Sterculia rupestris), with a bottle-shaped, or greatly swollen, trunk. --
Feeding bottle,
Nursing bottle, a bottle with a rubber nipple (generally with an intervening tube), used in feeding infants. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Bottled pos>p. pr. & vb. n. Bottling ] To put into bottles; to inclose in, or as in, a bottle or bottles; to keep or restrain as in a bottle; as, to bottle wine or porter; to bottle up one's wrath. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OE. botel, OF. botel, dim. of F. botte; cf. OHG. bozo bunch. See Boss stud. ] A bundle, esp. of hay. [ Obs. or Prov. Eng. ] Chaucer. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. a cylindrical brush on a thin shaft that is used to clean bottles. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. a cap that seals a bottle. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

a. 1. Put into bottles; inclosed in bottles; pent up in, or as in, a bottle. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Having the shape of a bottle; protuberant. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. 1. to feed with a bottle; -- of infants or baby animals. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

2. to train, manage or instruct (a person) with great attention to detail. [ PJC ]

n. the quantity contained in a bottle.
Syn. -- bottle. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. (Bot.) a European foxtail naturalized in North America; it is often a troublesome weed.
Syn. -- green bristlegrass, green foxtail, rough bristlegrass, bottle grass, Setaria viridis. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

def>A dark shade of green, like that of bottle glass. -- Bot"tle-green`, a. [1913 Webster]

n. (Zool.) A cetacean allied to the grampus; -- called also bottle-nosed whale. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ There are several species so named, as the pilot whales, of the genus Globicephalus, and one or more species of Hyperoödon (Hyperoödon bidens, etc.), found on the European coast. See Blackfish, 1. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. One who attends a pugilist in a prize fight; -- so called from the bottle of water of which he has charge. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. One who assists or supports another in a contest; an abettor; a backer. [ Colloq. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Lord Palmerston considered himself the bottleholder of oppressed states. The London Times. [ 1913 Webster ]

. 1. a location or situation in which otherwise rapid progress is impeded. [ PJC ]

2. a point at which road traffic slows due to congestion or narrowing of the roadway. [ PJC ]

3. an impasse. [ PJC ]

4. a narrowing.
Syn. -- constriction. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

v. t. same as obstruct; as, his laziness has bottlenecked our efforts to reform the system. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

v. i. to become narrower as one approaches a point; -- said of roads; as, right by the bridge, the road bottlenecks. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

. (Automobiles) An inswept frame. [ Colloq. ] [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

a. Having the nose bottle-shaped, or large at the end. Dickens. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Zool.) 1. A grey cetacean of the Dolphin family, of several species, as Delphinus Tursio and Lagenorhyncus leucopleurus, of Europe. Also Tursiops truncatus -- a synonym?
Syn. -- bottlenose dolphin. [ 1913 Webster +PJC ]

2. The puffin. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. a north Atlantic beaked whale with a bulbous forehead.
Syn. -- bottle-nosed whale, bottlenose whale, Hyperoodon ampullatus. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. One who bottles wine, beer, soda water, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

pos>n. A corkscrew. Swift. [ 1913 Webster ]

pos>n. The act or the process of putting anything into bottles (as beer, mineral water, etc.) and sealing the bottles, as with a cork or a bottle cap. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ OE. britel, brutel, AS. bryttian to dispense, fr. breótan to break; akin to Icel. brytja, Sw. bryta, Dan. bryde. Cf. Brickle. ] Easily broken; apt to break; fragile; not tough or tenacious. [ 1913 Webster ]

Farewell, thou pretty, brittle piece
Of fine-cut crystal. Cotton. [ 1913 Webster ]

Brittle silver ore, the mineral stephanite. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. fragrant rounded shrub of SW US and adjacent Mexico having brittle stems and small crowded blue-green leaves and yellow flowers; produces a resin used in incense and varnish and in folk medicine.
Syn. -- brittle bush, incienso, Encelia farinosa. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

adv. In a brittle manner. Sherwood. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. Aptness to break; fragility. [ 1913 Webster ]

(Zool.) Any species of ophiuran starfishes. See Ophiuroidea. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. pl. [ OE. calet, chatel, goods, property, OF. catel, chatel, LL. captale, capitale, goods, property, esp. cattle, fr. L. capitals relating to the head, chief; because in early ages beasts constituted the chief part of a man's property. See Capital, and cf. Chattel. ] Quadrupeds of the Bovine family; sometimes, also, including all domestic quadrupeds, as sheep, goats, horses, mules, asses, and swine. [ 1913 Webster ]

Belted cattle,
Black cattle. See under Belted, Black. --
Cattle guard, a trench under a railroad track and alongside a crossing (as of a public highway). It is intended to prevent cattle from getting upon the track. --
cattle louse (Zool.), any species of louse infecting cattle. There are several species. The Hæmatatopinus eurysternus and Hæmatatopinus vituli are common species which suck blood; Trichodectes scalaris eats the hair. --
Cattle plague, the rinderpest; called also Russian cattle plague. --
Cattle range, or
Cattle run, an open space through which cattle may run or range. [ U. S. ] Bartlett. --
Cattle show, an exhibition of domestic animals with prizes for the encouragement of stock breeding; -- usually accompanied with the exhibition of other agricultural and domestic products and of implements. [ 1913 Webster ]