PROBE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Probe

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/proʊb/ Listen

noun

Probe n. (Surg.) An instrument for examining the depth or other circumstances of a wound, ulcer, or cavity, or the direction of a sinus, of for exploring for bullets, for stones in the bladder, etc.

Probe scissors, or Probe-pointed scissors (Surg.), scissors used to open wounds, the blade of which, to be thrust into the orifice, has a button at the end.

verb

Probe v. t. (past & past part. probed; pres. part. probing)

To examine, as a wound, an ulcer, or some cavity of the body, with a probe.

Fig.: to search to the bottom; to scrutinize or examine thoroughly. "The growing disposition to probe the legality of all acts, of the crown."

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Etymology of 'Probe'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Probe" Quotes from Famous Books

... speaking in such terms of Lord Pendennyss. The promise to see her was cheerfully made by Mrs. Wilson, and her confidence accepted; not from a desire to gratify an idle curiosity, but a belief that it was necessary to probe a wound to cure it; and a correct opinion, that she would be a better adviser for a young and lovely woman, than even Pendennyss; for the Donna Lorenza she could hardly consider in a capacity to offer advice, much less dictation. They then took their leave, and Emily, ...

— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... which possessed him. There was in his impression much more and much less. The gibbet, a mighty trouble in the rudiment of comprehension, nascent in his mind, still seemed to him an apparition; but a trouble overcome is strength gained, and he felt himself stronger. Had he been of an age to probe self, he would have detected within him a thousand other germs of meditation; but the reflection of children is shapeless, and the utmost they feel is the bitter aftertaste of that which, obscure to them, the man later on calls indignation. Let us add that ...

— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... hid. Back shirt! cover blazoned infamy And let the whited front still hide from man The sepulchre of crime that festers here. He will not wake within an hour. I'll go Inform the Governor he sleeps, and have Him order none disturb his pious rest. Then I'll return and calmly probe his soul. Sleep ...

— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... serious problem with The Curate, however, is the same as the problem with all of Lloyd's satires except The Methodist, and the same as the problem with almost all satires between Pope and Burns or Blake. The satirist seems unwilling to probe, to find out what are the political, ethical, psychological, or aesthetic forces that cause the problems which the satirist condemns, and to recommend what can be done to change these forces. If the satirist notes any pattern at all, it is one of ineffective, ...

— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd

... would justify a violent act. The King is probing Hamlet's mind with gross human probes, to find out if he is mad. Hamlet is searching the King's mind with the finest of intellectual probes, to find out if he is guilty. The probe used by him, the fragment of a play within a play, is the work of a man with a knowledge of ...

— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

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