The Collaborative International Dictionary
Drop \Drop\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Droppedor Dropt; p. pr. & vb. n. Dropping.] [OE. droppen, AS. dropan, v. i. See Drop, n.]
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To pour or let fall in drops; to pour in small globules; to distill. ``The trees drop balsam.''
--Creech.The recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.
--Sterne. To cause to fall in one portion, or by one motion, like a drop; to let fall; as, to drop a line in fishing; to drop a courtesy.
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To let go; to dismiss; to set aside; to have done with; to discontinue; to forsake; to give up; to omit.
They suddenly drop't the pursuit.
--S. Sharp.That astonishing ease with which fine ladies drop you and pick you up again.
--Thackeray.The connection had been dropped many years. -- Sir W. Scott.
Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Heaven.
--Tennyson. To bestow or communicate by a suggestion; to let fall in an indirect, cautious, or gentle manner; as, to drop hint, a word of counsel, etc.
To lower, as a curtain, or the muzzle of a gun, etc.
To send, as a letter; as, please drop me a line, a letter, word.
To give birth to; as, to drop a lamb.
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To cover with drops; to variegate; to bedrop.
Show to the sun their waved coats dropped with gold.
--Milton.To drop a vessel (Naut.), to leave it astern in a race or a chase; to outsail it.
Dropping \Drop"ping\, n.
The action of causing to drop or of letting drop; falling.
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pl. That which falls in drops; the excrement or dung of animals; -- often used in the plural.
Dropping bottle, an instrument used to supply small quantities of a fluid to a test tube or other vessel.
Dropping fire, a continued irregular discharge of firearms.
Dropping tube, a tube for ejecting any liquid in drops.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (cx mostly plural English) A piece of animal excrement. 2 The act of something that drops or falls. vb. (present participle of drop English)
WordNet
n. a small quantity (especially of a liquid); "one drop of each sample was analyzed"; "any child with a drop of negro blood was legally a negro"; "there is not a drop of pity in that man" [syn: driblet]
a shape that is small and round; "he studied the shapes of low-viscosity drops"; "beads of sweat on his forehead" [syn: bead, pearl]
a sudden sharp decrease in some quantity; "a drop of 57 points on the Dow Jones index"; "there was a drop in pressure in the pulmonary artery"; "a dip in prices"; "when that became known the price of their stock went into free fall" [syn: dip, fall, free fall]
a steep high face of rock; "he stood on a high cliff overlooking the town"; "a steep drop" [syn: cliff, drop-off]
a predetermined hiding place for the deposit and distribution of illicit goods (such as drugs or stolen property)
a free and rapid descent by the force of gravity; "it was a miracle that he survived the drop from that height" [syn: fall]
a curtain that can be lowered and raised onto a stage from the flies; often used as background scenery [syn: drop curtain, drop cloth]
a central depository where things can be left or picked up
the act of dropping something; "they expected the drop would be successful"
adj. falling rapidly; "dropping prices"; "dropping rate of production"
coming down freely under the influence of gravity; "the eerie whistle of dropping bombs"; "falling rain" [syn: falling]
v. let fall to the ground; "Don't drop the dishes"
to fall vertically; "the bombs are dropping on enemy targets"
go down in value; "Stock prices dropped"
fall or drop to a lower place or level; "He sank to his knees" [syn: sink, drop down]
terminate an association with; "drop him from the Republican ticket"
utter casually; "drop a hint"
stop pursuing or acting; "drop a lawsuit"; "knock it off!" [syn: knock off]
leave or unload, especially of passengers or cargo; [syn: set down, put down, unload, discharge]
cause to fall by or as if by delivering a blow; "strike down a tree"; "Lightning struck down the hikers" [syn: fell, strike down, cut down]
lose (a game); "The Giants dropped 11 of their first 13"
lower the pitch of (musical notes) [syn: flatten] [ant: sharpen]
hang freely; "the ornaments dangled from the tree"; "The light dropped from the ceiling" [syn: dangle, swing]
stop associating with; "They dropped her after she had a child out of wedlock" [syn: dismiss, send packing, send away]
let or cause to fall in drops; "dribble oil into the mixture" [syn: dribble, drip]
get rid of; "he shed his image as a pushy boss"; "shed your clothes" [syn: shed, cast, cast off, shake off, throw, throw off, throw away]
leave undone or leave out; "How could I miss that typo?"; "The workers on the conveyor belt miss one out of ten" [syn: neglect, pretermit, omit, miss, leave out, overlook, overleap] [ant: attend to]
change from one level to another; "She dropped into army jargon"
grow worse; "Her condition deteriorated"; "Conditions in the slums degenerated"; "The discussion devolved into a shouting match" [syn: devolve, deteriorate, degenerate] [ant: recuperate]
give birth; used for animals; "The cow dropped her calf this morning"
See drop
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "dropping".
Squadrons of combat Remoras crisscrossed the sky, dropping incendiary bombs primarily in unoccupied areas, though a few struck warehouses and governmental buildings.
Dropping her end of the cable to fall beside Akim, Jin lowered herself over the edge to hang by her fingertips.
His eyes were rolling back in his head and his blood pressure obviously dropping as he went into V-fib, but he was still gasping for breath.
It seemed possible he might figure on getting inside, in on the Bahama Bank and dropping the hook, and then heading on for the Berry islands at first light.
Muammar Baraka smelled a strange odor, and then he realized that the fire was burning dried animal droppings.
And behind the house was the chicken coop, a miniature of its shanty self, where conceited hens stalked complacently about peering beadily this way and that, crooning their smug song of the Sacred Vessel, and squirting their droppings in the grass with the righteousness of saints.
After a few seconds we were outside the station, dropping down the Beanstalk after Jen and Larry.
The powerful halogen lights mounted on the front of the Hard-suit caught snowy motes of marine vegetation and nervous schools of fish in their beams, but before long, Austin was dropping into the benthic levels, where only the hardiest of fish lived.
As from the Bernese Oberland and from the valleys of the Reuss and Limmath gigantic glaciers came down and stretched across the plain of Switzerland to the Jura, scattering their erratic boulders over its summit and upon its slopes at the time of their greater extension, and, as they withdrew into the higher Alpine valleys, leaving them along their retreating track at the foot of the Jura and over the whole plain, so did the glaciers from Glen Prossen and parallel valleys on the Grampian Mountains extend across the valley of Strathmore, dropping their boulders not only on the slopes and along the base of the Sidlaw Hills, but scattering them in their retreat throughout the valley, until they were themselves reduced to isolated glaciers in the higher valleys.
Finding one, she moves into the glacier at a jog, dropping her biomorphic shield when the pressure moves above three psi and the temperature rises within thirty degrees of freezing.
Mumbling something about an old friend from Blackpool and just dropping in for a cup of tea, he follows Mags up the stairs.
In another moment Adye was on the doorstep and the bolts were dropping back into the staples.
After zigging through a bombproof furlong of roof, he was dropping into a large twilit cave.
A month later it erupted, and inch-long botfly maggots started squirming out and dropping to the ground.
In the crystal appeared a huge black engine, out of the end of which, one after another, were dropping little black boxes, each with a glint of crystal inside it.