POISED • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Poised

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/pɔɪzd/ Listen

verb

Poise v. t. (past & past part. poised; pres. part. poising) (Formerly written also peise)

To balance; to make of equal weight; as, to poise the scales of a balance.

To hold or place in equilibrium or equiponderance. "Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky; Nor poised, did on her own foundation lie."

To counterpoise; to counterbalance. "One scale of reason to poise another of sensuality." "To poise with solid sense a sprightly wit."

To ascertain, as by the balance; to weigh. "He can not sincerely consider the strength, poise the weight, and discern the evidence."

To weigh (down); to oppress. (Obs.) "Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow."

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Etymology of 'Poised'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Poised" Quotes from Famous Books

... stirr'd; The dull may waken to a humming-bird; The most recluse, discreetly open'd, find Congenial matter in the cockle-kind; The mind in metaphysics at a loss, May wander in a wilderness of moss;[427] 450 The head that turns at super-lunar things, Poised with a tail, ...

— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... through media and at a distance, as well as in contact; and it has an especial attraction for iron, the more so when the conducting medium is solid, such as a table; and so when the magnet is horizontally suspended, or poised, in the vicinity of iron, its tendency to point north and south is seriously disturbed. The disturbance of the bar, or needle, in such a case, is called its deflection; and it is corrected by so placing a piece of soft iron or another magnet in its neighbourhood as ...

— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness

... snatched a baby here and there and drove a herd of children before her indoors, glancing around and behind her as she did so with the anxious look of a motherly barn-door fowl when the hawk hangs poised ...

— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... ape-man, urging his fellows to attack. This man was the closest to Tarzan. But for him the ape-man could easily have reached Ta-den's side as the latter was urging him to do. Tarzan raised the body of the dead Waz-don above his head, held it poised there for a moment as with face raised to the heavens he screamed forth the horrid challenge of the bull apes of the tribe of Kerchak, and with all the strength of his giant sinews he hurled the corpse heavily ...

— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... perched himself on his high writing-stool, and opening his books, attempted to go on as usual with the business of the day. But there was something unquiet tugging at his conscience, which did not allow him to do so. He paused frequently, with his pen poised over his inkstand, or paper, and fell into reveries, which ended with expressions which burst out like shots from a revolver. It was now "Pshaw!" then, "I hate it worse than I do the synagogue;" or, "it is not injustice! Have I not ...

— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

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