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RUNG
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
One of the crosspieces that form the steps of a ladder
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("rung" is a kind of...):
crosspiece (a transverse brace)
Holonyms ("rung" is a part of...):
ladder (steps consisting of two parallel members connected by rungs; for climbing up or down)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A crosspiece between the legs of a chair
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("rung" is a kind of...):
crosspiece (a transverse brace)
Holonyms ("rung" is a part of...):
folding chair (a chair that can be folded flat for storage)
feeding chair; highchair (a chair for feeding a very young child; has four long legs and a footrest and a detachable tray)
rocker; rocking chair (a chair mounted on rockers)
side chair; straight chair (a straight-backed chair without arms)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past participle of the verb ring
Context examples:
There were three excellent off-shoots, like huge rungs of a ladder, above my head, and a tangle of convenient branches beyond, so that I clambered onwards with such speed that I soon lost sight of the ground and had nothing but foliage beneath me.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He must 'a' started off and got there afore me, for when I rung of the bell he kem an' opened the door 'isself an' 'elped me to carry the boxes into the 'all.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
To consult with Colonel Brandon on the best means of effecting the latter, was a thought which immediately followed the resolution of its performance; and as soon she had rung up the maid to take her place by her sister, she hastened down to the drawing-room, where she knew he was generally to be found at a much later hour than the present.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
He was impelled to suggest Locksley Hall, and would have done so, had not his vision gripped him again and left him staring at her, the female of his kind, who, out of the primordial ferment, creeping and crawling up the vast ladder of life for a thousand thousand centuries, had emerged on the topmost rung, having become one Ruth, pure, and fair, and divine, and with power to make him know love, and to aspire toward purity, and to desire to taste divinity—him, Martin Eden, who, too, had come up in some amazing fashion from out of the ruck and the mire and the countless mistakes and abortions of unending creation.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Some time later Garcia looked in at my door—the room was dark at the time—and asked me if I had rung.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I had hardly breakfasted then, and my uncle had not rung for his chocolate, when he called for me at Jermyn Street.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“Fire!” The shout must have rung over Norwood. It had hardly died away when an amazing thing happened.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
On the Tuesday there was a bitter frost, and the ground rung like iron beneath the feet of the horses; yet ere evening the prince himself, with the main battle of his army, had passed the gorge and united with his vanguard at Pampeluna.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
This brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, beginning low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures, then up rung by rung through reptiles and fishes, till at last we came to a kangaroo-rat, a creature which brought forth its young alive, the direct ancestor of all mammals, and presumably, therefore, of everyone in the audience.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
