If you like coffee or tea and you also like cookies or croissants, then you probably dunk your food into your coffee before eating it. You can of course dunk any food item into any beverage or into soup. If you push something or someone briefly under water or any other liquid, that is also to dunk. In US English, to dunk also means ‘to submerge yourself in water.’ In basketball, to dunk means to slam a…
To heave means ‘to lift with great effort’ and also ‘to lift and then throw with effort.’ To utter with effort is also to heave and so is to rise and fall with a swelling motion. In physiology, sometimes followed by up it means ‘to retch, to attempt to vomit’ or ‘to vomit.’ As a nautical term, to heave means…
You probably know a dart is a small slender object with a sharp point that can be used as a weapon or as a missile in a game. Darts, used with a singular verb, is the name of the game in which you throw darts at a circular board stuck to a wall. Figuratively, a dart is also a sudden, swift movement. Related to this…
A bristle is, most commonly, a short, stiff coarse hair of certain animals like hogs, which are used in making brushes. A short, stiff hair on other animals or humans, like the hairs that make up the stubble on a man’s chin, can also be called a bristle and, generally, anything resembling such a hair can be called a bristle too. As a verb, and when we are talking about hair, to bristle means ‘to stand or rise stiffly.’ Figuratively,…
A rim is the outer edge of border of something, especially of a circular object such as a glass, bowl, vase, or pan. Any edge or frame added to a circular object for decoration or other purposes is also a rim and so is the outer circle of a wheel, attached to the hub by spokes. In basketball, the rim is the metal ring from which the net is suspended to form the basket. As a verb, to rim means…
