thrust 
1 . To push forcibly ; shove ; force : as, to thrust 
a hand into one's pocket, or one's feet into slip- 
pers; to thrust a stick into the sand: usually 
followed by from, in, off, away, or other adverb 
or preposition. 
Sotilly this lettre doun she thresle 
Under his pilwe. 
Chaucer, Merchant's Tale, 1. 759. 
Gehazi came near to thrust her away. 2 Ki. iv. 27. 
Neither shall one thrust another. Joel ii. 8. 
He thrusts you from his love, she pulls thee on. 
Beau, and Ft. , Laws of Candy, iii. 3. 
At this some of them laughed at me, some called me 
fool, and some began to thrust me about. 
Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, ii. 
Near the bed of the brook is a stone on which they 
shew the print of his [Christ's] feet, supposed to be made 
as they were thrusting him along. 
Pococke, Description of the East, II. i. 22. 
2. Figuratively, to drive ; force ; compel. 
And into the concession of this Bellarmine is thrust by 
the force of our argument. 
Jer. Taylor, Heal Presence, iv. 8. 
3f. To press ; pack ; jam. 
Two & thretty thried shippes tkrast full of pepull. 
Destruction of Troy (E. E. T. S.), 1. 4129. 
A hall thrust full of bare heads, some bald, some bush'd, 
Some bravely branch'd. Tomkis (?), Albumazar, i. 3. 
4. To stab ; pierce. 
A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace, 
Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back. 
Shak., 1 Hen. VI., i. 1. 138. 
To thrust aside, to push or jostle out of the way ; dis- 
place. 
There are few Venetian memorials to be seen in these 
towns ; and if the winged lion ever appeared over their 
gates he has been carefully thrust aside by kings and em- 
perors. E. A. Freeman, Venice, p. 292. 
To thrust forth, (a) To drive out ; expel : as, she was 
thrust forth into the storm. (6) To protrude ; cause to pro- 
ject. 
From S. Michael's Mount Southward, immediately there 
is thrust forth a biland or demi-isle. 
Holland, tr. of Camden, p. 189. 
To thrust on. (a) To impel ; urge. 
Did she not thrust me on, 
And to my duty clapt the spur of honour ? 
Fletcher, Double Marriage, iv. 3. 
(b) To push forward ; advance, in space or time. 
This [evidence] thrusts on the building of the upper and 
greater church to a later time, surely not earlier than the 
reign of Justinian. E. A. Freeman, Venice, p. 169. 
To thrust one's nose Into. See nosei. To thrust 
one's self in or Into, to obtrude ; intrude ; enter where 
one is not welcome. 
Who 's there, I say ? How dare you thrust yourselves 
Into my private meditations? 
Shak., Hen. VIII., ii. 2. 65. 
To thrust out. (a) To drive out ; expel. 
They were thrust out of Egypt. Ex. xii. 39. 
(6) To stick out ; protrude. 
He spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue 
at me as far as he could without damaging the roots. 
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, i. 
(c) To force out 
The anguish of my soul thrusts out this truth, 
You are a tyrant. 
Beau, and Fl., Maid's Tragedy, iii. 1. 
To thrust through, to pierce from side to side ; transfix. 
Laeca Mariam, solicitous only for the king's safety, 
charging furiously every one that approached, was thrust 
through with a lance by a common soldier, who had ap- 
proached him unobserved. 
Bruce, Source of the Nile, II. 250. 
To thrust together, to compress. 
He thrust the fleece together. Judges vi. 38. 
To thrust upon, to force upon ; impose or inflict upon. 
Some are bom great, some achieve greatness, and some 
have greatness thrust upon 'em. Shak., 1. N., 11. 5. 158. 
= Syn. 1. Thrust is stronger, more energetic, than push or 
drive, and represents a more dignified act than shone. No 
other distinction really exists among these words. 
II. intrans. 1. To push or drive with or as 
with a pointed weapon. 
He next his falchion tried in closer fight; 
But the keen falchion had no power to bite ; 
He thrust, the blunted point returned again. 
Dryden, tr. of Ovid's Metamorph., xii. 643. 
They do not thrust with the skill of fencers, but cut up 
with the barbarity of butchers. Steele, Spectator, No. 422. 
2. To push one's self; force a way or passage. 
Then he threste thourgh the presse to that Saisne and 
for to yeve hym a grete stroke he reysed his ax. 
Merlin (E. E. T. S.), ii. 199. 
My fair reputation, 
If I thruit into crowds and seek occasions, 
Suffers opinion. 
Beau, and Fl., Thierry and Theodoret, ii. 3. 
Fish . . . thrust up little brooks to spawn. 
W. Lauson (Arber's Eng. Garner, I. 197). 
3. To crowd, or assemble in crowds ; press in ; 
throng. 
Young, old, thrust there 
In mighty concourse. 
Chapman, Odyssey. (Johnson.) 
6318 
4f. To rush ; make a dash. 
As doth an eager hound thrust to a hind. Spenser. 
thrust 1 (thrust), n. [< thrusfl, o.] 1. A vio- 
lent push or drive, as with a pointed weapon 
pushed in the direction of its length, or with 
the hand or foot, or with an instrument ; a stab ; 
as a term of fence, in general, any attack by a 
fencer with a point. With reference to the saber, 
broadsword, and other cut-and-thrust weapons, it distin- 
guishes the use of the point from a blow or cut, and is less 
important than in small-sword and foil work, where the 
point alone is used. In fencing thrusts are always made 
by extending the arm before moving the foot or body. 
A thrust (quoth he) of a sword, which went in at his 
side. Holland, tr. of Plutarch, p. 71. (Encye. Diet.) 
Lieut. Felton, being behind, made a Thrust with a com- 
mon Tenpenny Knife over Fryer's Arm at the Duke, 
which lighted so fatally that he silt his Heart in two, 
leaving the Knife sticking in the Body. 
Howell, Letters, I. T. 7. 
I have heard Gentlemen say, Sister, that one shou'd take 
great Care, when one makes a Thrust in Fencing, not to 
lye open ones self. Congreve, Love for Love, ii. 9. 
2. Attack; assault. 
There is one thrust at your pure, pretended mechanism. 
Dr. H. More, Divine Dialogues. 
3. In meek., the stress which acts between two 
contiguous bodies, or parts of a body, when 
each pushes the other from itself. A thrust tends 
thug 
handle, used for cutting up weeds, etc., in ag- 
riculture like the common hoe, but with a thrust 
instead of a pull. Also called Dutch hoc. See 
cut under /toel. 
thrusting (thrus'ting), n. [Verbal n. of thrnsft, 
.] 1. The act of pushing with force. 2. pi. 
In cheese-making, the white whey, or that which 
is last pressed out of the curd by the hand, 
and of which butter is sometimes made. Also 
thrntchings. [Prov. Eng.] 
thrusting-screw (thrus'ting-skro'), . The 
screw of a screw-press, as of a cheese-press. 
thrustle (thrus'l), w. An obsolete or dialectal 
variant of throstle. 
thrust-plane (thrust'plan), n. In geol., a type 
of reversed fault where, as the result of enor- 
mous tangential pressure, the rocks on the 
upper side of the fault have been pushed or 
thrust for a greater or less distance, with an en- 
tire severance of continuity, over the under- 
lying masses. The line of junction of the dis- 
severed parts in such cases is denominated a 
thrust-plane. 
thrusty, a. An obsolete or dialectal form of 
thirsty. 
thrutcher (thruch'er), n. [A dial. var. of thrmt- 
erj\ A thruster or pusher. [Prov. Eng.] 
Those who were the thrutchers [in mining] pushed the 
truck along with their heads and hands. 
W. Besant, Fifty Years Ago, p. 229. 
thrutchings (thruch'ingz), n. pi. [A dial. var. 
of thrustings.] Same as thrusting, 2. [Prov. 
Eng.] 
thryet, adv. See thrie%. 
thryest, adv. An obsolete form of thrice. 
thryfallowt, *. See thrifallow. 
Thryothorus (thri-oth'o-rus), . [NL. (Vieil- 
lot, 1819, and Thriothorus, 1816); also Tliri- 
othores (Lesson, 1840), < Gr. Bpitov, a rush, + 
L. torus, improp. thorus, a bed.] A leading 
genus of American wrens or Troglodytidss. it 
Thrust in Medieval Pointed Vaulting. 
The section in plan is taken at the level of the head of the flying- 
buttress. The arrows indicate the directions of the thrusts. 
to compress or shorten each body on which it acts in the 
direction of its action. 
4. In coal-mining, a crushing of the pillars 
caused by excess of weight of the superincum- 
bent rocks, the floor being harder than the roof. 
It is nearly the same as creep, except that in the latter the 
workings are disorganized by the upheaval of the floor, 
which, being softer than the roof, is first to yield to the 
pressure. 
5. The white whey which is the last to leave 
the curd under pressure. E. H. Knight, Line 
Of thrust. If a straight line be drawn through each bed- 
joint In the ring of an arch so as to represent the position 
and direction of the resultant pressure at that joint, a 
curve drawn so as to touch each of these lines at its inter- 
section with the joint from which it is derived is the line 
of thrust of the arch. If the arch Is stable its line of 
thrust must lie within the middle third of the depth of 
the arch-ring. Thrust of an arch, the force exerted in 
an outward direction by an arch, and explained by consid- 
ering its separate stones or voussoirs as so many wedges. 
Its tendency is to overturn the abutments or walls from 
which the arch springs, and to defonn and ultimately 
destroy the arch by causing it to break and rise at Its 
haunches. Hence all arches require to be secured in some 
way against this force, as by the mass of the abutments 
(the Roman method), by a system of buttresses (the me- 
dieval method), or by ties (the Italian method). Also called 
push of an arch. 
thrust 2 , n. An obsolete or dialectal form of 
thirst. 
thrust 3 (thrust), . See thurse and thrush^. 
thrust-bearing (thrusfbaVing), . The bear- 
ing that receives and transmits to the hull of 
a ship the thrust of a screw propeller: usually 
called thrust-block by marine engineers. 
thrust-box (thrust 'boks), n. A box-bearing 
which sustains the end-thrust of a shaft. 
thrustet. A Middle English subjunctive form 
of tharfl. 
thruster (thrus'ter), n. [< thrust* + -erl.] One 
who thrusts or stabs ; hence, a swordsman. 
I was sore thrust at. that I so might fall, 
But Thou o'er-threw'st my thrusters. 
Davits, Muse's Sacrifice, p. 34. (Dames.) 
thrust-hoe (thrust'ho), n. An implement like 
a broad chisel or gouge ; a trowel with a long 
Great Carolina Wren (Thryothorus Ittdtrvt'cianus). 
contains several of the larger wrens, as T. ludovicianus, 
the great Carolina wren, abundant in many parts of the 
United States ; Bewick's, T. bewicki, of similar range ; and 
other species of Mexico and Central and South America. 
thryvet. An old past participle of thrive. 
thud (thud), .; pret. and pp. thudded, ppr. thud- 
ding. [< ME. thuden (pret. thudde,prj. ithud), 
< AS. thydan, press, thrust, stab; cf. thoden, a 
whirl, a whirlwind.] I. trans. If. To push; 
press. 2. To beat ; strike. Jamieson. [Scotch.] 
3. To drive with impetuosity. Ramsay. 
(Jamieson.) [Scotch.] 
II. intrans. 1. To emit a low, dull sound such 
as is produced by a blow upon a comparatively 
soft substance. 
He felt the hollow-beaten mosses thud 
And tremble. Tennyson, Balin and Balan. 
2. To rush with a hollow sound. Gavin Doug- 
las, tr. of Virgil, p. 422. (Jamieson.) [Scotch.] 
3. To move with velocity : as, "he thudded 
away," Jamieson. [Scotch.] 
thud (thud), n. [< thud, .] The sound pro- 
duced by a blow upon a comparatively soft sub- 
stance ; a noise like that of a heavy stone strik- 
ing the ground ; hence, a stroke or blow causing 
a dull, blunt, or hollow sound. 
Lyk the blak thud of awful thunderis blast. 
Gavin Douglas, tr. of Virgil. 
The shot went whistling through the air above our 
heads, and plunged with a heavy thud into the ground . . . 
behind us. W. H. R\tssell, Diary in India, II. 376. 
= Syn. See thump. 
thug (thug), n. [< Hind, thag, thug (with cerebral 
th) = Marathi thak, thtuj, a cheat, knave, im- 
postor, a robber who strangled travelers, thug. 
The proper designation of the thug as a stran- 
