(n.) A thick, heavy knife with a hooked point, used in pruning hedges, etc. When it has a short handle, it is sometimes called a hand bill; when the handle is long, a hedge bill or scimiter.
Example Sentences:
(1) Resembling a billhook, with Foule Crag its wickedly curved tip, this final flourish looks daunting but can be skirted to one side, up awkward slabs.
(2) The Walter’s Tools library in Cumbria loans out a heritage collection of billhooks and scythes; modern share shops have shelves of useful stuff you only need occasionally, as do your neighbours .
(3) Foule Crag may sound Chaucerian, and indeed can prompt the kind of Anglo-Saxon language found in The Miller's Tale; it is as inextricably linked with Sharp Edge as is the wickedly curved tip on a Staffordshire billhook.
Pruning
Definition:
(p. pr. & vb. n.) of Prune
(n.) The act of trimming, or removing what is superfluous.
(n.) That which is cast off by bird in pruning her feathers; leavings.
Example Sentences:
(1) A case of "Prune Belly" syndrome, its sonographic diagnosis, from the 15th week and its monitoring by sonography and biochemical exams of fetal urine for study of renal function is described.
(2) With an incidence of between 1 in 30,000 and 1 in 50,000 births, prune-belly syndrome (PBS) is a rare malformation syndrome.
(3) We report the clinical findings, diagnostic problems and treatment of a 1-year-old Coloured child (with classic 'prune belly syndrome') in whom the spleen had undergone torsion, thus simulating an intra-abdominal abscess.
(4) Others have found more striking-power, or more simple poetry, but none an interpretation at once so full (in the sense of histrionic volume) and so consistently bringing all the aspects together, without any shirking or pruning away of what is inconvenient.
(5) That is, when distal branches are pruned off surgically, the axon compensates by producing extra proximal branches.
(6) The current controversies revolving around the fetal treatment of hydrocephalus and obstructive uropathies (posterior urethral valves, prune belly syndrome, hydronephrosis) are compared and contrasted with the remarkably similar controversies that raged when fetal transfusions were first introduced.
(7) This organization supports rapid pruning of the list of drugs.
(8) The X-linked prune (pn) eye-colour mutation of Drosophila melanogaster has a highly specific, complementary lethal interaction with the conditional dominant Killer of prune (awdK-pn) mutation.
(9) Aggressive surgical management of patients with the prune belly syndrome provides improved abdominal wall function and appearance, and offers excellent testicular salvage.
(10) The prune belly syndrome is a well-recognized entity consisting of deficient abdominal musculature, cryptorchid testes, and urinary tract abnormalities most consistent with an obstructive phenomenon.
(11) Reduction cystoplasty is a useful procedure to treat a large, poorly functioning bladder in boys with prune belly syndrome who are candidates for urinary tract reconstruction.
(12) Staff, which account for half of the NHS's costs, are being pruned, and services are now following.
(13) Their growth could be divided into three distinct phases: first, a period of initial outgrowth (55-70%) during which the basic skeleton of major neurites is formed; second, a shorter period of rapid growth (70-80%) during which the basic skeleton is elaborated by the addition of many side branches; and third, a period of maturation (80-95%) during which the branches formed during earlier growth appear to be pruned.
(14) As the protests were staged the centre-left cabinet in Portugal called an emergency session to try to prune more from public spending, as it grappled with a debt and deficit crisis that has thrown the spotlight back on to the country.
(15) The pathophysiology of hyperammonemic encephalopathy in association with the prune belly syndrome and a review of the literature are presented.
(16) Male infants predominate and have either isolated genital abnormalities, hydronephrotic conditions, or classic prune-belly syndrome.
(17) Under the conditions of chronic caloric restriction, the phenomenon of exuberance was retarded and pruning was not observed.
(18) Cholangiograms showed attenuation and pruning of the intrahepatic bile ducts, some with beading and dilatation of the common bile duct.
(19) The majority of the new class of mutations, designated pnts-e, do not interact with the mutation Killer of prune (Kpn) at all of the experimental temperatures, i.e., pnts-e, Kpn flies do not die.
(20) It will need lots of tweaking to avoid annoying people – it's already being prodded to see whether it takes more or fewer clicks to reach the phone-dialer (more), and whether you can still set wallpaper (no, but your friends do with their picture – you may need to prune your friends).