What is "bastard file"

Bastard \Bas"tard\, a.

1. Begotten and born out of lawful matrimony; illegitimate. See Bastard, n., note.

2. Lacking in genuineness; spurious; false; adulterate; -- applied to things which resemble those which are genuine, but are really not so.

   That bastard self-love which is so vicious in itself, and productive of so many vices.
   --Barrow.

3. Of an unusual or irregular make or proportion; as, a bastard musket; a bastard culverin. [Obs.]

4. (Print.) Abbreviated, as the half title in a page preceding the full title page of a book.

   Bastard ashlar (Arch.), stones for ashlar work, roughly squared at the quarry.

   Bastard file, a file intermediate between the coarsest and the second cut.

   Bastard type (Print.), type having the face of a larger or a smaller size than the body; e. g., a nonpareil face on a brevier body.

   Bastard wing (Zo["o]l.), three to five quill feathers on a small joint corresponding to the thumb in some mammalia; the alula.

File \File\ (f[imac]l), n. [AS. fe['o]l; akin to D. viji, OHG. f[=i]la, f[=i]hala, G. feile, Sw. fil, Dan. fiil, cf. Icel. [thorn][=e]l, Russ. pila, and Skr. pi[,c] to cut out, adorn; perh. akin to E. paint.]

1. A steel instrument, having cutting ridges or teeth, made by indentation with a chisel, used for abrading or smoothing other substances, as metals, wood, etc.

   Note: A file differs from a rasp in having the furrows made by straight cuts of a chisel, either single or crossed, while the rasp has coarse, single teeth, raised by the pyramidal end of a triangular punch.

2. Anything employed to smooth, polish, or rasp, literally or figuratively.

   Mock the nice touches of the critic's file.
   --Akenside.

3. A shrewd or artful person. [Slang]
   --Fielding.

   Will is an old file in spite of his smooth face.
   --Thackeray.

   Bastard file, Cross file, etc. See under Bastard, Cross, etc.

   Cross-cut file, a file having two sets of teeth crossing obliquely.

   File blank, a steel blank shaped and ground ready for cutting to form a file.

   File cutter, a maker of files.

   Second-cut file, a file having teeth of a grade next finer than bastard.

   Single-cut file, a file having only one set of parallel teeth; a float.

   Smooth file, a file having teeth so fine as to make an almost smooth surface.

n. A file of intermediate cut, neither very rough nor very smooth.