To draw tight; to tighten; to put in a state of tension; to strain; to strengthen.
To bind or tie closely; to fasten tightly.
To furnish with braces; to support; to prop.
To stop someone for questioning, usually said of police.
To confront with questions, demands or requests.
To prepare for something bad, such as an impact or blow.
To place in a position for resisting pressure; to hold firmly.
To swing round the yards of a square rigged ship, using braces, to present a more efficient sail surface to the direction of the wind.
Harness; warlike preparation.
That which holds anything tightly or supports it firmly; a bandage or a prop.
A cord, ligament, or rod, for producing or maintaining tension.
The state of being braced or tight; tension.
A piece of material used to transmit, or change the direction of, weight or pressure; any one of the pieces, in a frame or truss, which divide the structure into triangular parts. It may act as a tie, or as a strut, and serves to prevent distortion of the structure, and transverse strains in its members. A boiler brace is a diagonal stay, connecting the head with the shell.
A system of wires, brackets, and elastic bands used to correct crooked teeth or to reduce overbite.
Straps or bands to sustain trousers; suspenders.
Two goals scored by one player in a game.
A pair, a couple; originally used of dogs, and later of animals generally (e.g., a brace of conies) and then other things, but rarely human persons. (The plural in this sense is unchanged.) In British use (as plural), this is a particularly common reference to game birds.
A curved, pointed line, also known as "curly bracket": { or } connecting two or more words or lines, which are to be considered together, such as in {role, roll}; in music, used to connect staves.
A rope reeved through a block at the end of a yard, by which the yard is moved horizontally; also, a rudder gudgeon.
A curved instrument or handle of iron or wood, for holding and turning bits, etc.; a bitstock.
A thong used to regulate the tension of a drum.
The mouth of a shaft.
To stiffen with or as if with buckram.
A coarse cloth of cotton, linen or hemp, stiffened with size or glue, used in bookbinding to cover and protect the books, in garments to keep them in the form intended, and for wrappers to cover merchandise.
A plant, Allium ursinum, also called ramson, wild garlic, or bear garlic.