POISE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Poise

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/pɔɪz/ Listen

noun

Poise n. (Formerly written also peise)

1.

Weight; gravity; that which causes a body to descend; heaviness. "Weights of an extraordinary poise."

2.

The weight, or mass of metal, used in weighing, to balance the substance weighed.

3.

The state of being balanced by equal weight or power; equipoise; balance; equilibrium; rest.

4.

That which causes a balance; a counterweight. "Men of unbounded imagination often want the poise of judgment."

5.

A dignified and self-confident manner; graceful composure and tact in handling difficult social situations.

verb

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

1.

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

2.

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

3.

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

4.

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

5.

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

Poise v. i. To hang in equilibrium; to be balanced or suspended; hence, to be in suspense or doubt. "The slender, graceful spars Poise aloft in air."

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Etymology of 'Poise'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Poise" Quotes from Famous Books

... small head was thrown back, and in the poise of her slim young body there was a mingling of challenge and appealing self-defence. She looked like some trapped wild ...

— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... and leaving her slow, wide-winged poise in the upper airs, she veered and with swallow-like swiftness darted down on him. "That sounds patronizing and elder-brotherish," she told him. "I've taken on all sorts of cargo that you don't know anything about. In ever so many ways you seem ...

— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... Kyle, and I'll shoot you." In her tones there was none of the hysteria that usually spices feminine threats. She was angry, but her voice was grimly level. She had the poise of one who had learned to depend on her own resolute spirit. But she displayed something more than that. It was recklessness that was bravado. In the eyes of the State chairman, friend of Thornton, and accustomed to a milder form of femininity, it was impudence. Yet her beauty ...

— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... given valuable advice; scarce one who did not know off-hand that there was never a seaport in Bohemia,—as if Shakspeare's world were one which Mercator could have projected; scarce one but was satisfied that his ten finger-tips were a sufficient key to those astronomic wonders of poise and counterpoise, of planetary law and cometary seeming-exception, in his metres; scarce one but thought he could gauge like an ale-firkin that intuition whose edging shallows may have been sounded, but whose abysses, stretching down amid the sunless roots ...

— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... the dividing line between the territories of Switzerland and those of the King of Sardinia passes, was abeam, and the excellent calculations of the sagacious Maso became still more apparent. He had foreseen another shift of wind, as the consequence of all this poise and counterpoise, and he was here met by the true breeze of the night. The last current came out of the gorge of the Valais, sullen, strong, and hoarse, bringing him, however, fairly to windward of his port. The Winkelried was cast in season, and, when the gale struck her ...

— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

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