wrenning

[Eng. wren; -ing.] Chasing the wren (q. v.). (See compound.) wrenning-day, s. Folk-lore: The name given in the south of Ireland to St. Stephen's Day (Dec. 26), on which it was formerly the custom to hunt the wren and bear its body in proce ion from house to house, soliciting contributions toward the cost of a merry-making. Various accounts are given of the origin of this custom, but as in Celtic mythology the wren was regarded as having brought fire from heaven for the use of man, and as somewhat similar customs exist in many other places, it is probable that this hunting the wren had once a mystic meaning in connection with the great festive season of the first twelve nights of the sun's return from the winter solstice, and that the killing of the bird was originally sacrificial. A. Transitive: I. Literally: wrest 1. To twist; to wrench; to move from a fixed position by the application of a violent twisting force. "Lest Heav'n should wrest it from my idle hand." Rowe : Tamer lane , iv. *2. To tune, as with a wrest. II. Figuratively : 1. To extort or bring out, as by a twisting, wrenching, or painful force; to obtain or extort, as by torture, violence, or force. "Fate has wrested the confe ion from me." Add is on: Cato, iv. 1. 2. To subject to an improper strain; to apply unjustifiably to a different or improper use; to turn from truth or twist from the natural or proper meaning by violence; to pervert, to distort. "Two or thre textes wrongfully wrested ."-A Boke made by John Fryth , fol. 33. *B. In trans.: To wrestle, to contend. "Thei... wrested against the truth of a long time."Bp. Gardner: Of True Obedience, fol. 33. IMG:content-1051.png:[blocks in formation] at i what needeth this terest, to draw out from us an accu sation of foreign churches?"-Hooker: Eccles. Politie. 3. An instrument of the wrench, screw-key, or spanner kind; a turning-instrument, such as a wrench, tuning-key, bedstead-key, spanner, . "A bond that knitteth, or rather a wrest that strain eth and stretch eth benevolence to the utmost."-P. Holland: Plutarch, p. 4. II. Hydraul .: The partition in a water-wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined. *wrest-beer, s. Some kind of beer. "Just as in brewing wrest - beer there's a great deal of busine in grinding the malt; and that spoils any man's cloaths that comes near it; then it must be mash'd, then comes a fellow in and drinks of the wort, and he's drunk; then they keep a huge quarter when they carry it into the cellar, and a twelvemonth after 'tis delicate fine beer." Selden : Table Talk ; Parliament . wrěst-er, s. [English wrest, v.; -er.] One who wrests. "Yet blame not the claricorde, the wrester doth wrong." Skelton: A Claricorde. wres-tle, *wras-tle (tle as el), wrax-le, v . i . & t . [A frequent, from wrest (q. v.); A. S. wræst lian , wraxlian ; cogn. with O. Dut. wrostelen , wor stelen to wrestle.] A. Intransitive : 1. To contend by grappling with and trying to throw down another; to strive with arms extended as two men who seize each other by arms or body, each endeavoring to throw the other by tripping him up, or throwing him off his balance. "To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit."-Shakesp.: As You Like It , i. 1. *2. To struggle, to contend, to vie. I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love." Shakesp.: Antony and Cleopatra , iii. 2. *3. To contend; to be opposed to each other. "Wrestling winds, out of dispersed whirl Be fight themselves." Surrey: Virgile : Æneis , bk. ii. *4. To strive earnestly by means of supplication; to make earnest supplication. B. Trans.: To contend with in wrestling. wres-tle (tle as el), s. [WRESTLE, v.] A bout at wrestling; a wrestling-match. "Whom in a wrestle the giant catching aloft, with a terrible hugg broke three of his ribs."- Milton : Hist. Eng ., bk. i. wrěst-ler, wrăst-ler, (t silent), subst. [A. S. wrestlere. One who wrestles; one who is skilled in wrestling. "[He] calls the wrestlers to the level sands." Pope Homer's Iliad , xxiii. 815. wrest-ling (tsilent), pr . par ., a . & 8. [WRESTLE, verb.) A. & B As pr . par . & partic. adj.: (See the verb.) C. As substantive: 1. The act, practice, or exercise of contending, as of two men, who, with extended arms, seize each 4553 other by the arms or body, and endeavor each to throw the other by tripping up his heels or twitching him off his balance. "In which wrestlynge ye Geaunt brake a rybbe in ye side of Corneus."- Fabyan : Chronycle , ch. iv. *2. A winding. "The river having with a great turning compa e after much wrestling gotten out toward the north.-P. Holland : Camder , p. 279.