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Buckle   /bˈəkəl/   Listen
noun
Buckle  n.  
1.
A device, usually of metal, consisting of a frame with one more movable tongues or catches, used for fastening things together, as parts of dress or harness, by means of a strap passing through the frame and pierced by the tongue.
2.
A distortion bulge, bend, or kink, as in a saw blade or a plate of sheet metal.
3.
A curl of hair, esp. a kind of crisp curl formerly worn; also, the state of being curled. "Earlocks in tight buckles on each side of a lantern face." "Lets his wig lie in buckle for a whole half year."
4.
A contorted expression, as of the face. (R.) "'Gainst nature armed by gravity, His features too in buckle see."


verb
Buckle  v. t.  (past & past part. buckled; pres. part. buckling)  
1.
To fasten or confine with a buckle or buckles; as, to buckle a harness.
2.
To bend; to cause to kink, or to become distorted.
3.
To prepare for action; to apply with vigor and earnestness; formerly, generally used reflexively, but by mid 20th century, usually used with down; as, the programmers buckled down and worked late hours to finish the project in time for the promised delivery date. "Cartwright buckled himself to the employment."
4.
To join in marriage. (Scot.)


Buckle  v. i.  
1.
To bend permanently; to become distorted; to bow; to curl; to kink. "Buckled with the heat of the fire like parchment."
2.
To bend out of a true vertical plane, as a wall.
3.
To yield; to give way; to cease opposing. (Obs.) "The Dutch, as high as they seem, do begin to buckle."
4.
To enter upon some labor or contest; to join in close fight; to struggle; to contend. "The bishop was as able and ready to buckle with the Lord Protector as he was with him." "In single combat thou shalt buckle with me."
To buckle to, to bend to; to engage with zeal. "To make our sturdy humor buckle thereto." "Before buckling to my winter's work."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Buckle" Quotes from Famous Books



... information from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist sugar, and lending me, to copy at home, a large old English D which she had imitated from the heading of some newspaper, and which I supposed, until she told me what it was, to be a design for a buckle. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... tell you," returned the other. "Don't growl at yourself so much. You'll find your work and buckle down to it, some of these days. Maybe you'll find it out here—who knows? Of course Mr. Seldon would see to it that you got any post you would want in ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Babbicombe, from which, after three years, he moved to Bideford. He made frequent visits to London, where he was the guest of his publisher, John Parker, at whose table he met Arthur Helps, John and Richard Doyle, Cornewall Lewis, Richard Trench, then Dean of Westminster, and Henry Thomas Buckle, once famous as a scientific historian. He called on the Carlyles at their house in Chelsea, and began an intimacy only broken by death. Carlyle himself was an excellent adviser in Froude's peculiar field. He had the same Puritan leanings, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... going to have one, so don't bother to buckle on your armor." She relented as she looked into his miserable eyes, and took his hand impulsively. "I'm sorry...sorry....I wish...you are worth it...but it's ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... gone. The mere idea that you are not in a place for the rest of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling. That's why trial marriages would never work. You've got to feel you're in a thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really put your whole mind into making it ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster


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