Part 496

TIRE-bourre, Fr. In artillery, a wad-hook. It likewise signifies a worm to draw the charge out of a musquet.

TIRE-fond, Fr. An instrument which is used among the French to fix a petard. It likewise means a surgeon’s tenebra or piercer.

TIRE ligne, Fr. An instrument used in drawing lines.

TIRE-ployer, Fr. To discharge; to unload.

TIRER, Fr. To shoot, to fire.

TIRER à boulets rouges, Fr. To fire with red hot shot.

TIRER des armes à feu. To fire any species of firearm. There is a curious and well written passage on this subject in the Supplement aux reveries de M. le Maréchal de Saxe, page 76.

TIRER le canon, Fr. To fire or discharge pieces of ordnance.

TIRER likewise means to move towards any place, viz. Après la battaille gagnee, l’armee tira vers un tel lieu; after the battle had been won, the army moved towards such a quarter.

TIRER dix ou douze pieds d’eau, Fr. To draw ten or twelve feet water.

TIRER à la mer, Fr. To put off to sea.

TIREUR, Fr. A game keeper, a shooter.

TIREUR d’arc, Fr. A bowman, an archer.

TIREUR d’armes, Fr. A fencing-master.

TYROLIANS. A body of sharp shooters in the Austrian service. They take their name from the Tyrol, a country formerly belonging to Germany, about 150 miles long, and 120 broad. It is wholly mountainous, and was part of the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria; but having been twice conquered by the French, part has been irrevocably ceded to Bavaria in 1809, the rest is incorporated with the kingdom of Italy.

TOCSIN, Fr. An alarm bell.

TOHIE, Ind. A canoe.

TOISE, in military mensuration, is a French measure, containing 6 feet, or a fathom: a square toise is 36 square feet, and a cubical toise is 216 feet.

These two measures correspond in the division of the feet; but these divisions being unequal, it is necessary to observe, that the proportion of the yard, as fixed by the Royal Society at London, to the half toise as fixed by the Royal Academy at Paris, is as 36 to 38.355.

TOISE carree, Fr. Any square extent, having six feet in every sense.

TOISE cube, Fr. Any substance having 6 feet in length, 6 ditto in breadth, and 6 in depth.

TOISE, Fr. This word is used in the masculine gender, and signifies, in mathematics, the science or art of measuring surfaces and solids, and of reducing the measure by accurate calculation.

Une affaire TOISEE, Fr. A familiar phrase signifying, the thing is done, all over.

TOISER, Fr. To measure by the toise.

TOISER, Fr. In a military sense, to take the height of a man, as, toiser un soldat, to take the height of a soldier. The French likewise say in a figurative sense, toiser son homme, to examine one’s man with great attention, in order to find out his merits, or good qualities.

TOISEUR, Fr. A person employed among the French in the constructing and repairing of fortifications.

TOISEUR, Fr. A measurer.

TOISON d’or. Fr. The golden fleece.