retund
Definitions
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- verb To blunt or turn, as the edge of a weapon; dull.
Examples
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This one consideration, I say, well weighed and applied, will retund the edge and dint of all the Socinian assaults against this great article; whom I have still observed to assert boldly, when they conclude weakly, and in all their arguments to prove nothing more than this, that the greatest pretenders to, are not always the greatest masters of reason.
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Farther, the air being variously impregnated, sometimes more and sometimes less, with vapours and exhalations fitted to retund and intercept the rays of light, it follows that the appearance of the horizontal moon hath not always an equal faintness, and by consequence that luminary, though in the very same situation, is at one time judged greater than at another.
Note
The word 'retund' comes from the Latin 'retundere' from 're-' + 'tundere' "to beat".
