POUNCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pounce

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/paʊns/ Listen

verb

Pounce v. t. (past & past part. pounded; pres. part. pouncing) To sprinkle or rub with pounce; as, to pounce paper, or a pattern.

Pounce v. t.

To strike or seize with the talons; to pierce, as with the talons. (Archaic) "Stooped from his highest pitch to pounce a wren." "Now pounce him lightly, And as he roars and rages, let's go deeper."

To punch; to perforate; to stamp holes in, or dots on, by way of ornament. (Obs.)

Pounce v. i. To fall suddenly and seize with the claws; with on or upon; as, a hawk pounces upon a chicken. Also used figuratively. "Derision is never so agonizing as when it pounces on the wanderings of misguided sensibility."

noun

Pounce n.

A fine powder, as of sandarac, or cuttlefish bone, formerly used to prevent ink from spreading on manuscript.

Charcoal dust, or some other colored powder for making patterns through perforated designs, used by embroiderers, lace makers, etc.

Pounce box, a box for sprinkling pounce.

Pounce paper, a transparent paper for tracing.

Pounce n.

The claw or talon of a bird of prey.

A punch or stamp. (Obs.) "A pounce to print money with."

Cloth worked in eyelet holes. (Obs.)

See images of 'Pounce'

Etymology of 'Pounce'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pounce" Quotes from Famous Books

... to have done that. For those terrible Assyrians, who had set their hearts on conquering the whole east, were standing by, watching all the little kingdoms round tearing themselves to pieces by foolish wars, till they were utterly weak, and the time was ripe for the Assyrians to pounce upon them. The king of Assyria came. He swept away all the heathen people of Damascus, and killed their king. But he did not stop there. In a very few years, he came on into the land of Israel, besieged Samaria for three years, and took it, and carried off the whole of the ...

— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... instead of half a crown for his waistcoat, is the portrait of some actual Jew dealer whom, in one of the back streets of Chatham, the keen eyes of the precocious child, seeming to look at nothing, had curiously watched hovering like a hideous spider on the pounce ...

— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... a Schloss on—something-Stein, And became the first of as proud a line As e'er took toll on the river, When barons, perched in their castles high, On the valley would keep a watchful eye, And pounce on travellers with their cry, "The ...

— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... Socialist seats to the President's chair as unobtrusively as possible. He was walking furtively and he cut the figure of a hunted animal which is conscious that it is surrounded by other animals anxious to pounce upon it and devour it if it dares to show itself ...

— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... narrowly watched the squatter's attitude when the Assyrian came down like a person flying from perdition. Afterward, he had noted with approval that the new selectors were treated with the same forbearance and benevolence they had formerly experienced as refugees. But not until he saw Stewart pounce on the incident of the mammoth surprise-party as a clinching argument against land-monopoly, did that austere janitor hang his keys on his thumb, to hunt-up, far back in his book, the page reserved in case of rich men. And still the metaphor of the ...

— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

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