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/pɪrs/ Listen

verb

Pierce v. t. (past & past part. pierced; pres. part. piercing)

To thrust into, penetrate, or transfix, with a pointed instrument. "I pierce... her tender side."

To penetrate; to enter; to force a way into or through; to pass into or through; as, to pierce the enemy's line; a shot pierced the ship.

Fig.: To penetrate; to affect deeply; as, to pierce a mystery. "Pierced with grief." "Can no prayers pierce thee?"

Pierce v. i. To enter; to penetrate; to make a way into or through something, as a pointed instrument does; used literally and figuratively. "And pierced to the skin, but bit no more." "She would not pierce further into his meaning."

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Etymology of 'Pierce'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pierce" Quotes from Famous Books

... man who never lifted his nose from the trail once it was struck, and he had been the most loyal and faithful of Tarling's native trailers. But the detective never pretended that he understood Ling Chu's mind, or that he could pierce the veil which the native dropped between his own private thoughts and the curious foreigner. Even native criminals were baffled in their interpretation of Ling Chu's views, and many a man had gone to the scaffold puzzling the head, which was soon to be snicked ...

— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... the political horizon "no bigger than a man's hand," increase in magnitude and power and place its standard-bearer in the White House. But former Presidents had professed to hate slavery. President Fillmore had, yet signed the fugitive slave law; Pierce and Buchanan had both wielded the administrative arm in favor of slavery. We had seen Daniel Webster, Massachusetts' ablest jurist, and the most learned constitutional expounder—the man of whom it ...

— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... about twenty-five years of age I was present at a temperance meeting at Lowell, held in an unfinished factory building called the Prescott Mills. After some speaking, in which I had taken a part, the Rev. Dr. Pierce, then a white-headed gentleman of seventy years, whom I had seen as an overseer of Harvard College, came to me, introduced himself, and after a little conversation he asked me where I was born. When I answered Brookline, on the Dr. ...

— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... mosquito will perch itself upon the skin of a human being, pierce it with its proboscis, and suck away until it is gorged with blood! Why does it appear strange that a bat should ...

— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... looks all around him and seeks what prey he shall choose whereon to swoop[37] sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven on high. In one glance he sees all cattle in the field, all beasts upon the mountains, all men in their cities, all threatened at once by his intended swoop, and thence he falls to pierce with his beak and clutch with his claws the unsuspecting lamb, the timid hare, or whatsoever living creature chance offers to his hunger or ...

— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

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