Found 1 items, similar to To spring a rattle.
English → English (gcide) Definition: To spring a rattle Spring \Spring\ (spr[i^]ng), v. t. 1. To cause to spring up; to start or rouse, as game; to cause to rise from the earth, or from a covert; as, to spring a pheasant. [1913 Webster] 2. To produce or disclose suddenly or unexpectedly; as, to spring a surprise on someone; to spring a joke. [1913 Webster] She starts, and leaves her bed, and springs a light. --Dryden. [1913 Webster] The friends to the cause sprang a new project. --Swift. [1913 Webster] 3. To cause to explode; as, to spring a mine. [1913 Webster] 4. To crack or split; to bend or strain so as to weaken; as, to spring a mast or a yard. [1913 Webster] 5. To cause to close suddenly, as the parts of a trap operated by a spring; as, to spring a trap. [1913 Webster] 6. To bend by force, as something stiff or strong; to force or put by bending, as a beam into its sockets, and allowing it to straighten when in place; -- often with in, out, etc.; as, to spring in a slat or a bar. [1913 Webster] 7. To pass over by leaping; as, to spring a fence. [1913 Webster] 8. To release (a person) from confinement, especially from a prison. [colloquial] [PJC] To spring a butt (Naut.), to loosen the end of a plank in a ship's bottom. To spring a leak (Naut.), to begin to leak. To spring an arch (Arch.), to build an arch; -- a common term among masons; as, to spring an arch over a lintel. To spring a rattle, to cause a rattle to sound. See Watchman's rattle, under Watchman. To spring the luff (Naut.), to ease the helm, and sail nearer to the wind than before; -- said of a vessel. --Mar. Dict. To spring a mast or To spring a spar (Naut.), to strain it so that it is unserviceable. [1913 Webster] Rattle \Rat"tle\, n. 1. A rapid succession of sharp, clattering sounds; as, the rattle of a drum. --Prior. [1913 Webster] 2. Noisy, rapid talk. [1913 Webster] All this ado about the golden age is but an empty rattle and frivolous conceit. --Hakewill. [1913 Webster] 3. An instrument with which a rattling sound is made; especially, a child's toy that rattles when shaken. [1913 Webster] The rattles of Isis and the cymbals of Brasilea nearly enough resemble each other. --Sir W. Raleigh. [1913 Webster] Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. --Pope. [1913 Webster] 4. A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer. [1913 Webster] It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster] 5. A scolding; a sharp rebuke. [Obs.] --Heylin. [1913 Webster] 6. (Zo["o]l.) Any organ of an animal having a structure adapted to produce a rattling sound. [1913 Webster] Note: The rattle of a rattlesnake is composed of the hardened terminal scales, loosened in succession, but not cast off, and so modified in form as to make a series of loose, hollow joints. [1913 Webster] 7. The noise in the throat produced by the air in passing through mucus which the lungs are unable to expel; -- chiefly observable at the approach of death, when it is called the death rattle. See R[^a]le. [1913 Webster] To spring a rattle, to cause it to sound. Yellow rattle (Bot.), a yellow-flowered herb (Rhinanthus Crista-galli ), the ripe seeds of which rattle in the inflated calyx. [1913 Webster]