MUZZLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Muzzle

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/mˈəzəl/ Listen

noun

Muzzle n.

The projecting mouth and nose of a quadruped, as of a horse; a snout.

The mouth of a thing; the end for entrance or discharge; as, the muzzle of a gun.

A fastening or covering (as a band or cage) for the mouth of an animal, to prevent eating or vicious biting. "With golden muzzles all their mouths were bound"

Muzzle sight. (Gun.) See Dispart, n., 2.

verb

Muzzle v. t. (past & past part. muzzled; pres. part. muzzling)

To bind the mouth of; to fasten the mouth of, so as to prevent biting or eating; hence, figuratively, to bind; to sheathe; to restrain from speech or action; as, the dictator muzzled all the newspapers. "My dagger muzzled." "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn."

To fondle with the closed mouth. (Obs.)

Muzzle v. i. To bring the mouth or muzzle near. "The bear muzzles and smells to him."

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Etymology of 'Muzzle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Muzzle" Quotes from Famous Books

... the Court circle a good deal of lively atheism. The Empress was much amused, but some of her councillors suggested that it might be desirable to check these expositions of doctrine. The Empress did not like to put a direct muzzle on her guest's tongue, so the following plot was contrived. Diderot was informed that a learned mathematician was in possession of an algebraical demonstration of the existence of God, and would give it him before all the Court, if he desired to hear it. Diderot gladly consented: though ...

— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... befall them. Amongst some tribes of Eastern Africa, when a lion is killed, the carcase is brought before the king, who does homage to it by prostrating himself on the ground and rubbing his face on the muzzle of the beast. In some parts of Western Africa if a negro kills a leopard he is bound fast and brought before the chiefs for having killed one of their peers. The man defends himself on the plea that the leopard is chief of the ...

— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... an almost solid South," seems quite unconscious that this kind of victory could have any force as a precedent or as an estoppel (Johnson, "The Southern Presbyterians," pp. 335, 359). But it is natural, no doubt, that exscinding acts should look different when examined from the muzzle instead of from ...

— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... left. Pickets kept up firing from 2.40 A.M. until 5.25, when the engagement became general. Shortly after 6.00 A.M. our artillery opened on the Spanish works, who promptly returned the compliment. During the firing the Dons exploded a shell in the muzzle of one of our pieces. Adjutant Barnum fell at 6.30 A.M.; his wound was promptly dressed, when I started to the Division Hospital with him. Though seriously hurt, I have never seen a better natured man. While en route, we laid him down to eat a can of salmon found in the ...

— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... his left hand over the side of his head, and down the curve of the skull behind the ear. He said to himself: "My wife ... this will make it all right for her...." and a last flash of irony twitched through him. Then he felt again, more deliberately, for the spot he wanted, and put the muzzle of ...

— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

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