GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English

last match results

Found 2 definitions

  1.       
    
    Hulk , n. [OE. hulke a heavy ship, AS. hulc a light, swift ship; akin to D. hulk a ship of burden, G. holk, OHG. holcho; perh. fr. LL. holcas, Gr. , prop., a ship which is towed, fr. to draw, drag, tow. Cf. Wolf, Holcad.]
    1. The body of a ship or decked vessel of any kind; esp., the body of an old vessel laid by as unfit for service. “Some well-timbered hulk.”
      Spenser.

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    2. A heavy ship of clumsy build.
      Skeat.

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    3. Anything bulky or unwieldly.
      Shak.

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      Shear hulk, an old ship fitted with an apparatus to fix or take out the masts of a ship. -- The hulks, old or dismasted ships, formerly used as prisons. [Eng.] Dickens.

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  2.       
    
    Shear, n. [AS. sceara. See Shear, v. t.]
    1. A pair of shears; -- now always used in the plural, but formerly also in the singular. See Shears.
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      On his head came razor none, nor shear.
      Chaucer.

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      Short of the wool, and naked from the shear.
      Dryden.

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    2. A shearing; -- used in designating the age of sheep.
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      After the second shearing, he is a two-shear ram; . . . at the expiration of another year, he is a three-shear ram; the name always taking its date from the time of shearing.
      Youatt.

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    3. (Engin.) An action, resulting from applied forces, which tends to cause two contiguous parts of a body to slide relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact; -- also called shearing stress, and tangential stress.
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    4. (Mech.) A strain, or change of shape, of an elastic body, consisting of an extension in one direction, an equal compression in a perpendicular direction, with an unchanged magnitude in the third direction.
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      Shear blade, one of the blades of shears or a shearing machine. -- Shear hulk. See under Hulk. -- Shear steel, a steel suitable for shears, scythes, and other cutting instruments, prepared from fagots of blistered steel by repeated heating, rolling, and tilting, to increase its malleability and fineness of texture.

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