Word Meanings - TOUCHWOOD - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. Wood so decayed as to serve for tinder; spunk, or punk. 2. Dried fungi used as tinder; especially, the Polyporus igniarius.

Related words: (words related to TOUCHWOOD)

• DRINKABLE
  Capable of being drunk; suitable for drink; potable. Macaulay. Also used substantively, esp. in the plural. Steele.
• DECAY
  To pass gradually from a sound, prosperous, or perfect state, to one of imperfection, adversity, or dissolution; to waste away; to decline; to fail; to become weak, corrupt, or disintegrated; to rot; to perish; as, a tree decays; fortunes decay;
• DRIBBLET; DRIBLET
  A small piece or part; a small sum; a small quantity of money in making up a sum; as, the money was paid in dribblets. When made up in dribblets, as they could, their best securities were at an interest of twelve per cent. Burke.
• DRIFTBOLT
  A bolt for driving out other bolts.
• DRINK
  p. pr. & vb. n. Drinking. Drunken is now rarely used, except as a verbal adj. in sense of habitually intoxicated; the form drank, not drincan; akin to OS. drinkan, D. drinken, G. trinken, Icel. drekka, 1. To swallow anything liquid, for quenching
• DRIVEL
  To be weak or foolish; to dote; as, a driveling hero; driveling love. Shak. Dryden. (more info) 1. To slaver; to let spittle drop or flow from the mouth, like a child, idiot, or dotard. 2. Etym:
• DRIVE
  To dig Horizontally; to cut a horizontal gallery or tunnel. Tomlinson. 7. To pass away; -- said of time. Chaucer. Note: Drive, in all its senses, implies forcible or violent action. It is the reverse of to lead. To drive a body is to move it by
• DRIFTPIECE
  An upright or curved piece of timber connecting the plank sheer with the gunwale; also, a scroll terminating a rail.
• FUNGIVOROUS
  Eating fungi; -- said of certain insects and snails.
• SPUNK
  1. Wood that readily takes fire; touchwood; also, a kind of tinder made from a species of fungus; punk; amadou. Sir T. Browne. 2. An inflammable temper; spirit; mettle; pluck; as, a man of spunk. A lawless and dangerous set, men of spunk,
• SERVER
  1. One who serves. 2. A tray for dishes; a salver. Randolph.
• FUNGIN
  A name formerly given to cellulose found in certain fungi and mushrooms.
• DRINKER
  One who drinks; as, the effects of tea on the drinker; also, one who drinks spirituous liquors to excess; a drunkard. Drinker moth , a large British moth .
• FUNGIBLES
  Things which may be furnished or restored in kind, as distinguished from specific things; -- called also fungible things. Burrill. (more info) fungi to discharge. "A barbarous term, supposed to have originated in the use of the words functionem
• DRIFTPIN
  A smooth drift. See Drift, n., 9.
• DECAYER
  A causer of decay.
• DRIFTLESS
  Having no drift or direction; without aim; purposeless.
• DRILL PRESS
  A machine for drilling holes in metal, the drill being pressed to the metal by the action of a screw.
• DRIVER
  A part that transmits motion to another part by contact with it, or through an intermediate relatively movable part, as a gear which drives another, or a lever which moves another through a link, etc. Specifically: The driving wheel of a locomotive.
• DRIFTAGE
  1. Deviation from a ship's course due to leeway. 2. Anything that drifts.
• CHONDRIN
  A colorless, amorphous, nitrogenous substance, tasteless and odorless, formed from cartilaginous tissue by long-continued action of boiling water. It is similar to gelatin, and is a large ingredient of commercial gelatin.
• MIDRIB
  A continuation of the petiole, extending from the base to the apex of the lamina of a leaf.
• SUNDRILY
  In sundry ways; variously.
• DISSERVE
  To fail to serve; to do injury or mischief to; to damage; to hurt; to harm. Have neither served nor disserved the interests of any party. Jer. Taylor. (more info) Etym:
• HYPOCHONDRIACISM
  Hypochondriasis.
• RESERVE
  1. To keep back; to retain; not to deliver, make over, or disclose. "I have reserved to myself nothing." Shak. 2. Hence, to keep in store for future or special use; to withhold from present use for another purpose or time; to keep; to retain. Gen.
• DENDRIFORM
  Resembling in structure a tree or shrub.
• MAUNDRIL
  A pick with two prongs, to pry with.
• QUADRIBLE
  Quadrable.
• DESERVEDNESS
  Meritoriousness.
• CHONDRIFICATION
  Formation of, or conversion into, cartilage.
• ADRIATIC
  Of or pertaining to a sea so named, the northwestern part of which is known as the Gulf of Venice.
• QUADRICEPS
  The great extensor muscle of the knee, divided above into four parts which unite in a single tendon at the knee.
• SUNDRIES
  Many different or small things; sundry things.
• QUADRIGEMINAL; QUADRIGEMINOUS
  Fourfold; having four similar parts, or two pairs of similar parts. Quadrigeminal bodies , two pairs of lobes, or elevations, on the dorsal side of the midbrain of most mammals; the optic lobes. The anterior pair are called the nates,
• QUADRIREME
  A galley with four banks of oars or rowers.