stifle, stifil, stiefle

t. & i. [Icel. stifla = to dam up, to block up, to choke; Norw. stivla =to stop, to check; stivia =to stiffen; stiva (Dan. stive ) =to stiffen; Sw. styfva; Dut. stijven; Ger. steifen =to stiffen.] A. Transitive: I. Literally: II. Figuratively : stigma 1. To stop the pa age or progre of; to deaden, to quench, to smother; as, to stifle sound. 2. To suppre ; to keep from any active manifestation; to keep back from public notice or knowledge; to conceal, to repre , to put down. "It would be a bad day for England if debate were to be stifled and minorities silenced."-St. James's Gazette, Sept. 23, 1885. B. Intransitive: *1. To be suffocated; to perish by suffocation or strangulation. "You shall stifle in your own report." Shakesp.: Measure for Measure, ii. 4. 2. To be so hot and close as almost to stifle. sti-fle, s . [Prob. connected with stiff (q. v.)] 1. The joint of a horse or other animal next to the buttock, and corresponding to the knee in man; also called the Stifle-joint. "He has rare legs and feet, grand shoulders, but he is too straight in stiftes to please us."Field, Sept. 4, 1886. 2. A disease in the knee-pan of a horse or other animal. stifie-bone, subst . A bone in the leg of a horse, corresponding to the knee-pan in man. In the illustration, a is the femur or thigh-bone; b, the stifle-bone; c, the tibia; d , the tarsus; and e, the metatarsus. stifle-joint, s. The same as STIFLE, 8. 1. stifle-shoe, s . Farr.: A horseshoe which has a curved bar beneath it, exposing a rounded surface to the ground, so as to give it an insecure foundation. It is placed on the Bones foot of the sound leg, in order to induce of the the animal to throw the weight of the horse's hind-quarters upon the foot of that leg hind leg. which is stifled, that is, has a luxated or weak stifle-joint. sti-fied (le as el), a. [Eng. stift (e), s.; -ed.] Suffering from or affected with stifle. sti-fler, subst . [Eng. stift (e), v.; -er.] One who or that which stifles; specifically, in military engineering, a small mine made for the purpose of interrupting the operation of the enemy's miners; a IMG:content-0304.png:[blocks in formation] 1. Anat.: The projecting part of a Graafian follicle at which rupture occurs. 2. Biol . ( pl .): The external openings of the tracheal apparatus in the Insect a and Arachnid a. Applied also to the pores of the segmental organs of Leeches, and to the openings by which the pneuma to cyst communicates with the exterior in some of the Physophoride. [SPIRACLE.] 3. Bot . The part of the pistil to which the pollen is applied. It is generally situated at the upper extremity of the style. It is a glandular body, destitute of epidermis, and secretes a viscous material, which is most abundant at the period of fecundation. It is sometimes smooth, at others it may be covered with papillæ or with plumose hairs. or it may have around it an indusium. Morphologically viewed, the stigma is the apex of the carpellary leaf. When there is more than one style, each has a stigma; when there are several, they may coalesce so as to have various lobes or divisions. In most cases the stigma is thicker than the style. It varies greatly in form, and may be capitate, penicillate, plumose, or feathery, petaloid, peltate, filiform, or papillose. In some cases ases the stigma extends down the inner face of the style; it is then called unilateral. "Sighs were stifled in the cries of blood." Dryden: Ovid; Metamorphoses, viii. 2. To kill by impeding respiration, as by covering the mouth or nose, by introducing an irrespirable substance into the lungs, or by other means; to suffocate or greatly oppre by foul air or other wise; to smother. "Within a while smored and stifled , theyr breath failing, the i gaue vp to God their innocent soules into the ioyes of heauen." -Sir T. More: Workes , p. 68. 4. Eccles. ( pl . ): A term borrowed from Gal. vi. 17, "I bear in my body the marks (Gr. & Vulg.stigmata) writers to the marks of stigmatization (q.v.). St. Paul probably took his metaphor from the fact that pagan soldiers sometimes branded the name of their general on some part of their body. ( Light foot , in loc .). No writer of authority has ever maintained that the stigmata of St. Paul were anything more than the actual marks of suffering inflicted by his persecutors (Cor. ii. xi. 23-27). "In a work on the subject Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre enumerates 145 persons, twenty men, the rest women, who are stated to have received the stigmata ."- Addis & Arnold: Cath. Dict ., p. 777. marine; gō, pot, stigmaria