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Buckle   /bˈəkəl/   Listen
noun
Buckle  n.  
1.
A device, usually of metal, consisting of a frame with one more movable tongues or catches, used for fastening things together, as parts of dress or harness, by means of a strap passing through the frame and pierced by the tongue.
2.
A distortion bulge, bend, or kink, as in a saw blade or a plate of sheet metal.
3.
A curl of hair, esp. a kind of crisp curl formerly worn; also, the state of being curled. "Earlocks in tight buckles on each side of a lantern face." "Lets his wig lie in buckle for a whole half year."
4.
A contorted expression, as of the face. (R.) "'Gainst nature armed by gravity, His features too in buckle see."



verb
Buckle  v. t.  (past & past part. buckled; pres. part. buckling)  
1.
To fasten or confine with a buckle or buckles; as, to buckle a harness.
2.
To bend; to cause to kink, or to become distorted.
3.
To prepare for action; to apply with vigor and earnestness; formerly, generally used reflexively, but by mid 20th century, usually used with down; as, the programmers buckled down and worked late hours to finish the project in time for the promised delivery date. "Cartwright buckled himself to the employment."
4.
To join in marriage. (Scot.)



Buckle  v. i.  
1.
To bend permanently; to become distorted; to bow; to curl; to kink. "Buckled with the heat of the fire like parchment."
2.
To bend out of a true vertical plane, as a wall.
3.
To yield; to give way; to cease opposing. (Obs.) "The Dutch, as high as they seem, do begin to buckle."
4.
To enter upon some labor or contest; to join in close fight; to struggle; to contend. "The bishop was as able and ready to buckle with the Lord Protector as he was with him." "In single combat thou shalt buckle with me."
To buckle to, to bend to; to engage with zeal. "To make our sturdy humor buckle thereto." "Before buckling to my winter's work."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Buckle" Quotes from Famous Books



... his nether garments, And his leathern stock unties— As the flower of London's dustmen, Now in swift pursuit he flies. Nimbly now he cuts and shuffles, O'er the buckle, heel and toe! Flaps his hands in his side-pockets, Winks ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... barbarian mounting its broad back and riding thereon, to the shouts of the other boys and the shrill cries of the girls. But now, from my car-seat, I could see Gershom surrounded by a multi-colored group of little figures, as he stopped to fix a strap-buckle on the school-bag of one of his pupils. And as he stood there in the slanting afternoon sunlight surrounded by his charges he suddenly made me think of the tall old priest in Sorolla's Triste Herencia surrounded by his waifs. I caught the echo of something benignant ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... to say, to roll the cloak and strap it on the riding saddle, pack the off saddle with spare boots and rolls made up of a waterproof sheet, blanket, harness-sheets, spare breeches, muzzles, hay-nets, etc., and finally to buckle on filled nose-bags and our mess-tins, and strap horse-blankets under the saddles. His stable-kit and the rest of a driver's personal belongings are carried in four wallets, two on ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... Bentham! the fanaticism of his adherents can touch me no longer; I feel the inadequacy of his mind and ideas for being the rule of human society, for perfection. Culture tends always thus to deal with the men of a system, of disciples, of a school; with men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle, or Mr. Mill. However much it may find to admire in these personages, or in some of them, it nevertheless remembers the text: "Be not ye called Rabbi!" and it soon passes on from any Rabbi. But Jacobinism ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... saving the people from oppression. In Europe without the supernatural barrier of the Church, the position of the common people in the Middle Ages would have been intolerable, and life, and virtue totally unprotected. Buckle, in his "History of Civilization," like other extreme radicals, has failed to understand that established religions have paradoxically been most valuable because of their vast secular powers, exercised under the mask of spiritual authority. Without this ghostly restraint ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale


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