(v.) A messenger or crier of a court; a servitor; one who cites or bids persons to appear and answer; -- called also an apparitor or summoner.
(v.) An officer in a university, who precedes public processions of officers and students.
(v.) An inferior parish officer in England having a variety of duties, as the preservation of order in church service, the chastisement of petty offenders, etc.
(n.) A bed or cot for a baby, oscillating on rockers or swinging on pivots; hence, the place of origin, or in which anything is nurtured or protected in the earlier period of existence; as, a cradle of crime; the cradle of liberty.
(n.) Infancy, or very early life.
(n.) An implement consisting of a broad scythe for cutting grain, with a set of long fingers parallel to the scythe, designed to receive the grain, and to lay it evenly in a swath.
(n.) A tool used in mezzotint engraving, which, by a rocking motion, raises burrs on the surface of the plate, so preparing the ground.
(n.) A framework of timbers, or iron bars, moving upon ways or rollers, used to support, lift, or carry ships or other vessels, heavy guns, etc., as up an inclined plane, or across a strip of land, or in launching a ship.
(n.) A case for a broken or dislocated limb.
(n.) A frame to keep the bedclothes from contact with the person.
(n.) A machine on rockers, used in washing out auriferous earth; -- also called a rocker.
(n.) A suspended scaffold used in shafts.
(n.) The ribbing for vaulted ceilings and arches intended to be covered with plaster.
(n.) The basket or apparatus in which, when a line has been made fast to a wrecked ship from the shore, the people are brought off from the wreck.
(v. i.) To lie or lodge, as in a cradle.
(v. t.) To lay to rest, or rock, as in a cradle; to lull or quiet, as by rocking.
(v. t.) To nurse or train in infancy.
(v. t.) To cut and lay with a cradle, as grain.
(v. t.) To transport a vessel by means of a cradle.
(computer science) a system of world-wide electronic communication in which a computer user can compose a message at one terminal that can be regenerated at the recipient's terminal when the recipient logs in; "you cannot send packages by electronic mail"
Communicate electronically on the computer; "she e-mailed me the good news"
(v. t.) To give strength or ability to; to make firm and strong.
(v. t.) To make able (to do, or to be, something); to confer sufficient power upon; to furnish with means, opportunities, and the like; to render competent for; to empower; to endow.