v. t. | 1. | To perforate or penetrate, as a solid body, by turning an auger, gimlet, drill, or other instrument; to make a round hole in or through; to pierce; as, to bore a plank. |
| 2. | To form or enlarge by means of a boring instrument or apparatus; as, to bore a steam cylinder or a gun barrel; to bore a hole. |
| 3. | To make (a passage) by laborious effort, as in boring; as, to bore one's way through a crowd; to force a narrow and difficult passage through. |
| 4. | To weary by tedious iteration or by dullness; to tire; to trouble; to vex; to annoy; to pester. |
| 5. | To befool; to trick. |
v. i. | 1. | To make a hole or perforation with, or as with, a boring instrument; to cut a circular hole by the rotary motion of a tool; as, to bore for water or oil (i. e., to sink a well by boring for water or oil); to bore with a gimlet; to bore into a tree (as insects). |
| 2. | To be pierced or penetrated by an instrument that cuts as it turns; as, this timber does not bore well, or is hard to bore. |
| 3. | To push forward in a certain direction with laborious effort. |
| 4. | (Man.) To shoot out the nose or toss it in the air; - said of a horse. |
n. | 1. | A hole made by boring; a perforation. |
| 2. | The internal cylindrical cavity of a gun, cannon, pistol, or other firearm, or of a pipe or tube. |
| 3. | The size of a hole; the interior diameter of a tube or gun barrel; the caliber. |
| 4. | A tool for making a hole by boring, as an auger. |
| 5. | Caliber; importance. |
| 6. | A person or thing that wearies by prolixity or dullness; a tiresome person or affair; any person or thing which causes ennui. |
| 1. | (Physical Geog.) A tidal flood which regularly or occasionally rushes into certain rivers of peculiar configuration or location, in one or more waves which present a very abrupt front of considerable height, dangerous to shipping, as at the mouth of the Amazon, in South America, the Hoogly and Indus, in India, and the Tsien-tang, in China. |
imp. | 1. | imp. of 1st & 2d Bear. |