SCAN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Scan

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/skæn/ Listen

verb

Scan v. t. (past & past part. scanned; pres. part. scanning)

To mount by steps; to go through with step by step. (Obs.) "Nor stayed till she the highest stage had scand."

Specifically (Pros.), to go through with, as a verse, marking and distinguishing the feet of which it is composed; to show, in reading, the metrical structure of; to recite metrically.

To go over and examine point by point; to examine with care; to look closely at or into; to scrutinize. "The actions of men in high stations are all conspicuous, and liable to be scanned and sifted."

To examine quickly, from point to point, in search of something specific; as, to scan an article for mention of a particular person.

(Electronics) To form an image or an electronic representation of, by passing a beam of light or electrons over, and detecting and recording the reflected or transmitted signal.

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Etymology of 'Scan'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Scan" Quotes from Famous Books

... do but follow me and scan Thine own charge close. Think'st thou that any man Would rather rule and be afraid than rule And sleep untroubled? ...

— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... day llewellyn little loved The chase of hart or hare; And scan and small the booty proved, For Gelert was ...

— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... no Diccon. When she would see him coming she would run away for fear of herself, and seek her room in the loft, where she would scrub her face and hands in a hopeless effort to remove the sun-brown. Then she would scan her face in a mirror, for which Dic had paid two beautiful bearskins, hoping to convince herself that she was ...

— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... Popo Agie, but soon found themselves in the midst of stupendous crags and precipices that barred all progress. Retracing their steps, and falling back upon the river, they consulted where to make another attempt. They were too close beneath the mountains to scan them generally, but they now recollected having noticed, from the plain, a beautiful slope rising, at an angle of about thirty degrees, and apparently without any break, until it reached the snowy region. Seeking this gentle acclivity, they began to ascend it with alacrity, trusting to find ...

— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... unnatural New World empire—was the culminating figure of Mexico's internecine warfare and questionable financial acts. The story of Maximilian stands out from the pages of Mexico's history in pathetic colours, wringing a sigh from us as we scan its pages, or halt a space in the museum of Mexico's capital before the gilded tawdry coach of the ill-fated Austrian, which is preserved there in musty ruin. For up rose Napoleon III., pricking up his ears at this suggestion of a monarchy in America; and, ...

— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

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