| counterattack | (noun) an attack by a defending force against an attacking enemy force in order to regain lost ground or cut off enemy advance units etc. | Synonyms: countermove |
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| (noun) (chess) an attack that is intended to counter the opponent's advantage in another part of the board | Synonyms: counterplay |
| (verb) make a counterattack | Synonyms: counterstrike |
| countercheck | (noun) something that checks the correctness of a previous check | Synonyms: double check |
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| (noun) a check that restrains another check | - |
| (verb) check a second time | - |
| (verb) oppose or check by a counteraction | Synonyms: counteract |
| cowlick | (noun) a tuft of hair that grows in a different direction from the rest of the hair and usually will not lie flat | - |
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| crack | (adjective) of the highest quality | Synonyms: A-one, ace, first-rate, super, tiptop, top-notch, topnotch, tops |
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| (noun) the act of cracking something | Synonyms: cracking, fracture |
| (noun) a usually brief attempt | Synonyms: fling, go, offer, pass, whirl |
| (noun) a narrow opening | Synonyms: gap |
| (noun) a purified and potent form of cocaine that is smoked rather than snorted; highly addictive | Synonyms: crack cocaine, tornado |
| (noun) a blemish resulting from a break without complete separation of the parts | - |
| (noun) witty remark | Synonyms: quip, sally, wisecrack |
| (noun) a sudden sharp noise | Synonyms: cracking, snap |
| (noun) a long narrow cleft | Synonyms: cleft, crevice, fissure, scissure |
| (noun) a long narrow depression in a surface | Synonyms: chap, cranny, crevice, fissure |
| (noun) a chance to do something | Synonyms: shot |
| (verb) break suddenly and abruptly, as under tension | Synonyms: snap |
| (verb) become fractured; break or crack on the surface only | Synonyms: break, check |
| (verb) break partially but keep its integrity | - |
| (verb) cause to become cracked | - |
| (verb) reduce (petroleum) to a simpler compound by cracking | - |
| (verb) break into simpler molecules by means of heat | - |
| (verb) pass through (a barrier) | Synonyms: break through |
| (verb) tell spontaneously | - |
| (verb) hit forcefully; deal a hard blow, making a cracking noise | - |
| (verb) suffer a nervous breakdown | Synonyms: break up, collapse, crack up, crock up |
| (verb) make a sharp sound | Synonyms: snap |
| (verb) make a very sharp explosive sound | - |
| (verb) gain unauthorized access computers with malicious intentions | - |
| crackerjack | (noun) something excellent of its kind | Synonyms: jimdandy, jimhickey |
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| (noun) someone excellent of their kind | Synonyms: jimdandy, jimhickey |
| crick | (noun) a painful muscle spasm especially in the neck or back (`rick' and `wrick' are British) | Synonyms: kink, rick, wrick |
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| (verb) twist (a body part) into a strained position | - |
| crock | (noun) an earthen jar (made of baked clay) | Synonyms: earthenware jar |
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| (noun) nonsense; foolish talk | - |
| (noun) a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink | Synonyms: carbon black, lampblack, smut, soot |
| (verb) soil with or as with crock | - |
| (verb) release color when rubbed, of badly dyed fabric | - |
| crookback | (adjective) characteristic of or suffering from kyphosis, an abnormality of the vertebral column | Synonyms: crookbacked, gibbous, humpbacked, humped, hunchbacked, kyphotic |
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| (noun) a person whose back is hunched because of abnormal curvature of the upper spine | Synonyms: humpback, hunchback |
| crookneck | (noun) yellow squash with a thin curved neck and somewhat warty skin | Synonyms: crookneck squash, summer crookneck |
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| crosscheck | (noun) an illegal check (chopping at an opponent's arms or stick) | - |
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| (noun) an instance of confirming something by considering information from several sources | - |
| crossjack | (noun) the lowermost sail on a mizzenmast | Synonyms: mizzen course |
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| cutback | (noun) a reduction in quantity or rate | - |
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| dabchick | (noun) small European grebe | Synonyms: little grebe, Podiceps ruficollis |
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| deadlock | (noun) a situation in which no progress can be made or no advancement is possible | Synonyms: dead end, impasse, stalemate, standstill |
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| deck | (noun) any of various platforms built into a vessel | - |
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| (noun) street name for a packet of illegal drugs | - |
| (noun) a porch that resembles the deck on a ship | - |
| (noun) a pack of 52 playing cards | Synonyms: deck of cards, pack of cards |
| (verb) knock down with force | Synonyms: coldcock, dump, floor, knock down |
| (verb) decorate | Synonyms: bedeck, bedight |
| (verb) be beautiful to look at | Synonyms: adorn, beautify, decorate, embellish, grace |
| defrock | (verb) divest of the frock; of church officials | Synonyms: unfrock |
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| derrick | (noun) a simple crane having lifting tackle slung from a boom | - |
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| (noun) a framework erected over an oil well to allow drill tubes to be raised and lowered | - |
| detick | (verb) free (a pet) of ticks | - |
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| diamondback | (noun) large deadly rattlesnake with diamond-shaped markings | Synonyms: Crotalus adamanteus, diamondback rattlesnake |
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| dick | (noun) obscene terms for penis | Synonyms: cock, pecker, prick, putz, shaft, tool |
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| (noun) someone who is a detective | Synonyms: gumshoe, hawkshaw |
| dieback | (noun) a disease of plants characterized by the gradual dying of the young shoots starting at the tips and progressing to the larger branches | - |
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| diestock | (noun) a device that holds the dies that cut external threads on metal cylinders | - |
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| dipstick | (noun) a graduated rod dipped into a container to indicate the fluid level | - |
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| dock | (noun) the solid bony part of the tail of an animal as distinguished from the hair | - |
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| (noun) a short or shortened tail of certain animals | Synonyms: bob, bobtail |
| (noun) landing in a harbor next to a pier where ships are loaded and unloaded or repaired; may have gates to let water in or out | Synonyms: dockage, docking facility |
| (noun) a platform built out from the shore into the water and supported by piles; provides access to ships and boats | Synonyms: pier, wharf, wharfage |
| (noun) an enclosure in a court of law where the defendant sits during the trial | - |
| (noun) a platform where trucks or trains can be loaded or unloaded | Synonyms: loading dock |
| (noun) any of certain coarse weedy plants with long taproots, sometimes used as table greens or in folk medicine | Synonyms: sorrel, sour grass |
| (verb) maneuver into a dock | - |
| (verb) remove or shorten the tail of an animal | Synonyms: bob, tail |
| (verb) come into dock | - |
| (verb) deduct from someone's wages | - |
| (verb) deprive someone of benefits, as a penalty | - |
| doorlock | (noun) a lock on an exterior door | - |
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| downtick | (noun) a transaction in the stock market at a price below the price of the preceding transaction | - |
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| drawback | (noun) the quality of being a hindrance | - |
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| dreadlock | (noun) one of many long thin braids of hair radiating from the scalp; popularized by Rastafarians | - |
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| dreck | (noun) merchandise that is shoddy or inferior | Synonyms: schlock, shlock |
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| dropkick | (noun) (football) kicking (as for a field goal) in which the football is dropped and kicked as it touches the ground | - |
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| (verb) make the point after a touchdown with a dropkick | Synonyms: drop-kick |
| (verb) drop and kick (a ball) as it touches the ground, as for a field goal | Synonyms: drop-kick |
| drumstick | (noun) a stick used for playing a drum | - |
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| (noun) the lower joint of the leg of a fowl | - |
| drydock | (noun) a large dock from which water can be pumped out; used for building ships or for repairing a ship below its waterline | Synonyms: dry dock, graving dock |
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| (verb) maneuver (a ship) into a drydock | Synonyms: dry-dock |
| duck | (noun) small wild or domesticated web-footed broad-billed swimming bird usually having a depressed body and short legs | - |
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| (noun) a heavy cotton fabric of plain weave; used for clothing and tents | - |
| (noun) flesh of a duck (domestic or wild) | - |
| (noun) (cricket) a score of nothing by a batsman | Synonyms: duck's egg |
| (verb) avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues) | Synonyms: circumvent, dodge, elude, evade, fudge, hedge, parry, put off, sidestep, skirt |
| (verb) to move (the head or body) quickly downwards or away | - |
| (verb) submerge or plunge suddenly | - |
| (verb) dip into a liquid | Synonyms: dip, douse |
| dumbstruck | (adjective) as if struck dumb with astonishment and surprise | Synonyms: dumbfounded, dumbstricken, dumfounded, flabbergasted, stupefied, thunderstruck |
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| dunnock | (noun) small brownish European songbird | Synonyms: hedge sparrow, Prunella modularis, sparrow |
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| electroshock | (noun) the administration of a strong electric current that passes through the brain to induce convulsions and coma | Synonyms: ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, electroshock therapy |
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| fallback | (noun) to break off a military action with an enemy | Synonyms: disengagement, pullout |
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| fatback | (noun) salt pork from the back of a hog carcass | - |
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| feedback | (noun) response to an inquiry or experiment | - |
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| (noun) the process in which part of the output of a system is returned to its input in order to regulate its further output | - |
| feedstock | (noun) the raw material that is required for some industrial process | - |
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| fetlock | (noun) projection behind and above a horse's hoof | - |
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| (noun) the joint between the cannon bone and the pastern | Synonyms: fetlock joint |
| fiddleneck | (noun) hairy annual of California to Mexico with crowded cymes of small blue to lilac or mauve flowers | Synonyms: Phacelia tanacetifolia |
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| fiddlestick | (noun) a bow used in playing the violin | Synonyms: violin bow |
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| finback | (noun) large flat-headed whalebone whale having deep furrows along the throat; of Atlantic and Pacific | Synonyms: Balaenoptera physalus, common rorqual, fin whale, finback whale |
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| firebrick | (noun) brick made of fire clay; used for lining e.g. furnaces and chimneys | - |
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| firelock | (noun) a muzzle loader that had a flintlock type of gunlock | Synonyms: flintlock |
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| flack | (noun) artillery designed to shoot upward at airplanes | Synonyms: ack-ack, ack-ack gun, antiaircraft, antiaircraft gun, flak, pom-pom |
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| (noun) intense adverse criticism | Synonyms: attack, blast, fire, flak |
| (noun) a slick spokesperson who can turn any criticism to the advantage of their employer | Synonyms: flack catcher, flak, flak catcher |
| flapjack | (noun) a flat cake of thin batter fried on both sides on a griddle | Synonyms: battercake, flannel-cake, flannel cake, flapcake, griddlecake, hot cake, hotcake, pancake |
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| flashback | (noun) a transition (in literary or theatrical works or films) to an earlier event or scene that interrupts the normal chronological development of the story | - |
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| (noun) an unexpected but vivid recurrence of a past experience (especially a recurrence of the effects of an hallucinogenic drug taken much earlier) | - |
| fleck | (noun) a small contrasting part of something | Synonyms: dapple, maculation, patch, speckle, spot |
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| (noun) a small fragment of something broken off from the whole | Synonyms: bit, chip, flake, scrap |
| (verb) make a spot or mark onto | Synonyms: blob, blot, spot |
| flick | (noun) a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement | Synonyms: film, motion-picture show, motion picture, movie, moving-picture show, moving picture, pic, picture, picture show |
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| (noun) a short stroke | - |
| (noun) a light sharp contact (usually with something flexible) | - |
| (verb) remove with a flick (of the hand) | - |
| (verb) touch or hit with a light, quick blow | - |
| (verb) cause to make a snapping sound | Synonyms: click, snap |
| (verb) throw or toss with a quick motion | Synonyms: jerk |
| (verb) twitch or flutter | Synonyms: riffle, ruffle |
| (verb) cause to move with a flick | Synonyms: flip |
| (verb) flash intermittently | Synonyms: flicker |
| (verb) look through a book or other written material | Synonyms: flip, leaf, riff, riffle, thumb |
| (verb) shine unsteadily | Synonyms: flicker |
| flintlock | (noun) an obsolete gunlock that has flint embedded in the hammer; the flint makes a spark that ignites the charge | - |
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| (noun) a muzzle loader that had a flintlock type of gunlock | Synonyms: firelock |
| flock | (noun) a group of birds | - |
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| (noun) a group of sheep or goats | Synonyms: fold |
| (noun) a church congregation guided by a pastor | - |
| (noun) an orderly crowd | Synonyms: troop |
| (noun) (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent | Synonyms: batch, deal, good deal, great deal, hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle, mint, mountain, muckle, passel, peck, pile, plenty, pot, quite a little, raft, sight, slew, spate, stack, tidy sum, wad |
| (verb) come together as in a cluster or flock | Synonyms: clump, cluster, constellate |
| (verb) move as a crowd or in a group | - |
| flyspeck | (adjective) very small | Synonyms: bantam, diminutive, lilliputian, midget, petite, tiny |
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| (noun) a tiny dark speck made by the excrement of a fly | - |
| follback | (verb) to return someone's following of you on a social media platform | - |
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| foredeck | (noun) the deck between the bridge and the forecastle | - |
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| forelock | (noun) a lock of a horse's mane that grows forward between the ears | Synonyms: foretop |
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| (noun) a lock of hair growing (or falling) over the forehead | - |
| foreshock | (noun) a tremor preceding an earthquake | - |
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| frock | (noun) a one-piece garment for a woman; has skirt and bodice | Synonyms: dress |
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| (noun) a habit worn by clerics | - |
| (noun) a long, loose outer garment | - |
| (verb) put a frock on | - |
| fuck | (noun) slang for sexual intercourse | Synonyms: ass, fucking, nookie, nooky, piece of ass, piece of tail, roll in the hay, screw, screwing, shag, shtup |
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| (noun) Strongly and emphatically all of something | - |
| (verb) have sexual intercourse with | Synonyms: bang, be intimate, bed, bonk, do it, eff, get it on, get laid, have a go at it, have intercourse, have it away, have it off, have sex, hump, jazz, know, lie with, love, make love, make out, roll in the hay, screw, sleep together, sleep with |
| fullback | (noun) (American football) the position of a back on a football team, generally larger in size than halfbacks | - |
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| (noun) (football) the running back who plays the fullback position on the offensive team | - |
| (verb) play the fullback | - |
| gamecock | (noun) a cock bred and trained for fighting | Synonyms: fighting cock |
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| (noun) someone who is a very fierce fighter | Synonyms: hell-kite, hell-rooster |
| gearstick | (noun) a mechanical device for engaging and disengaging gears | Synonyms: gear lever, gearshift, shifter |
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| gemsbuck | (noun) large South African oryx with a broad black band along its flanks | Synonyms: gemsbok, Oryx gazella |
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| geoduck | (noun) a large edible clam found burrowing deeply in sandy mud along the Pacific coast of North America; weighs up to six pounds; has siphons that can extend to several feet and cannot be withdrawn into the shell | - |
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| gimcrack | (adjective) tastelessly showy | Synonyms: brassy, cheap, flash, flashy, garish, gaudy, loud, meretricious, tacky, tatty, tawdry, trashy |
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| (noun) ornamental objects of no great value | Synonyms: falderol, folderal, frill, gimcrackery, nonsense, trumpery |
| gimmick | (noun) any clever maneuver | Synonyms: device, twist |
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| (noun) something unspecified whose name is either forgotten or not known | Synonyms: dojigger, doodad, doohickey, gismo, gizmo, gubbins, thingamabob, thingamajig, thingmabob, thingmajig, thingumabob, thingumajig, thingummy, whatchamacallit, whatchamacallum, whatsis, widget |
| (noun) a drawback or difficulty that is not readily evident | Synonyms: catch |
| goldbrick | (noun) anything that is supposed to be valuable but turns out to be worthless | - |
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| (noun) a brick-shaped block that looks like gold but is not | - |
| (noun) an idle worthless person | Synonyms: good-for-naught, good-for-nothing, goof-off, ne'er-do-well, no-account |
| (noun) a soldier who performs his duties without proper care or effort | - |
| (verb) avoid (one's assigned duties) | Synonyms: fiddle, shirk, shrink from |
| (verb) deprive of by deceit | Synonyms: bunco, con, defraud, diddle, hornswoggle, mulct, nobble, rook, scam, short-change, swindle, victimize |
| gooseneck | (noun) something in a thin curved form (like the neck of a goose) | - |
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| grayback | (noun) a dowitcher with a grey back | Synonyms: greyback, Limnodromus griseus |
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| (noun) a sandpiper that breeds in the Arctic and winters in the Southern Hemisphere | Synonyms: Calidris canutus, greyback, knot |
| greenback | (noun) a piece of paper money (especially one issued by a central bank) | Synonyms: bank bill, bank note, banker's bill, banknote, bill, Federal Reserve note, government note, note |
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| greensick | (adjective) of or pertaining to or suffering from chlorosis | Synonyms: chlorotic |
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| greyback | (noun) a dowitcher with a grey back | Synonyms: grayback, Limnodromus griseus |
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| (noun) a sandpiper that breeds in the Arctic and winters in the Southern Hemisphere | Synonyms: Calidris canutus, grayback, knot |
| (noun) `Johnny' was applied as a nickname for Confederate soldiers by the Federal soldiers in the American Civil War; `greyback' derived from their grey Confederate uniforms | Synonyms: Johnny, Johnny Reb, Reb, Rebel |
| gridlock | (noun) a traffic jam so bad that no movement is possible | - |
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| gripsack | (noun) a small suitcase | - |
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| gritrock | (noun) a hard coarse-grained siliceous sandstone | Synonyms: grit, gritstone |
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| guck | (noun) any thick, viscous matter | Synonyms: goo, gook, goop, gunk, muck, ooze, slime, sludge |
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| gunlock | (noun) the action that ignites the charge in a firearm | Synonyms: firing mechanism |
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| gunnysack | (noun) a bag made of burlap | Synonyms: burlap bag, gunny sack |
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| gunstock | (noun) the handle of a handgun or the butt end of a rifle or shotgun or part of the support of a machine gun or artillery gun | Synonyms: stock |
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| hack | (noun) a horse kept for hire | - |
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| (noun) an old or over-worked horse | Synonyms: jade, nag, plug |
| (noun) a saddle horse used for transportation rather than sport etc. | - |
| (noun) a car driven by a person whose job is to take passengers where they want to go in exchange for money | Synonyms: cab, taxi, taxicab |
| (noun) a tool (as a hoe or pick or mattock) used for breaking up the surface of the soil | - |
| (noun) one who works hard at boring tasks | Synonyms: drudge, hacker |
| (noun) a mediocre and disdained writer | Synonyms: hack writer, literary hack |
| (noun) a politician who belongs to a small clique that controls a political party for private rather than public ends | Synonyms: machine politician, political hack, ward-heeler |
| (verb) cough spasmodically | Synonyms: whoop |
| (verb) significantly cut up a manuscript | Synonyms: cut up |
| (verb) fix a computer program piecemeal until it works | Synonyms: hack on |
| (verb) kick on the shins | - |
| (verb) kick on the arms | - |
| (verb) cut away | - |
| (verb) cut with a hacking tool | Synonyms: chop |
| (verb) be able to manage or manage successfully | Synonyms: cut |
| hackmatack | (noun) poplar of northeastern North America with broad heart-shaped leaves | Synonyms: balsam poplar, Populus balsamifera, tacamahac |
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| haddock | (noun) important food fish on both sides of the Atlantic; related to cod but usually smaller | Synonyms: Melanogrammus aeglefinus |
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| (noun) lean white flesh of fish similar to but smaller than cod; usually baked or poached or as fillets sauteed or fried | - |
| haick | (noun) an outer garment consisting of a large piece of white cloth; worn by men and women in northern Africa | Synonyms: haik |
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| halfback | (noun) (American football) the position of a back on a football team, generally smaller in size than a fullback | - |
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| (noun) (football) the running back who plays the offensive halfback position | - |
| hammerlock | (noun) a wrestling hold in which the opponent's arm is twisted up behind his back | - |
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| hammock | (noun) a hanging bed of canvas or rope netting (usually suspended between two trees); swings easily | Synonyms: sack |
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| (noun) a small natural hill | Synonyms: hillock, hummock, knoll, mound |
| handlock | (noun) shackle that consists of a metal loop that can be locked around the wrist; usually used in pairs | Synonyms: cuff, handcuff, manacle |
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| hardback | (adjective) having a hard back or cover | Synonyms: hardbacked, hardbound, hardcover |
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| (noun) a book with cardboard or cloth or leather covers | Synonyms: hardcover |
| hardtack | (noun) very hard unsalted biscuit or bread; a former ship's staple | Synonyms: pilot biscuit, pilot bread, sea biscuit, ship biscuit |
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| (noun) a mountain mahogany | - |
| hassock | (noun) a cushion for kneeling on (as when praying in church) | - |
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| (noun) thick cushion used as a seat | Synonyms: ottoman, pouf, pouffe, puff |
| hatchback | (noun) a sloping rear car door that is lifted to open | Synonyms: hatch, hatchback door, liftgate |
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| (noun) a car having a hatchback door | - |
| hatrack | (noun) a rack with hooks for temporarily holding coats and hats | Synonyms: coat rack, coatrack |
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| havelock | (noun) a cloth covering for a service cap with a flap extending over the back of the neck to protect the neck from direct rays of the sun | - |
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| haversack | (noun) a bag carried by a strap on your back or shoulder | Synonyms: back pack, backpack, knapsack, packsack, rucksack |
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| haycock | (noun) a small cone-shaped pile of hay that has been left in the field until it is dry enough to carry to the hayrick | - |
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| hayrack | (noun) a frame attached to a wagon to increase the amount of hay it can carry | Synonyms: hayrig |
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| (noun) a rack that holds hay for feeding livestock | - |
| hayrick | (noun) a stack of hay | Synonyms: haystack, rick |
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| haystack | (noun) a stack of hay | Synonyms: hayrick, rick |
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| headlock | (noun) a wrestling hold in which the opponent's head is locked between the crook of your elbow and the side of your body | - |
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