CHECK, v.t.

1. A stop; hinderance; rebuff; sudden restraint, or continued restraint; curb; control; government.
2. That which stops or restrains, as reproof, reprimand, rebuke, slight, or disgust, fear, apprehension, a person; any stop or obstruction. – Shak. Dryden. Clarendon.
3. In falconry, when a hawk forsakes her proper game, to follow rooks, pies, or other fowls, that cross her in her flight. – Bailey. Encyc.
4. The correspondent cipher of a bank note; a corresponding indenture; any counter-register. – Johnson.
5. A term in chess, when one party obliges the other either to move or guard his king.
6. An order for money, drawn on a banker or on the cashier of a bank, payable to the bearer. This is a sense derived from that in definition 4.
7. In popular use, checkered cloth; check, for checkered. Check or check-roll, a roll or book containing the names of persons who are attendants and in the pay of a king or great personage, as domestic servants. – Bailey. Encyc. Clerk of the check, in the British King's household, has the check and control of the yeomen of the guard, and all the ushers belonging to the royal family, the care of the watch, &c. – Bailey. Encyc. Clerk of the check, in the British Royal Dock-yards, is an officer who keeps a register of all the men employed on board his majesty's ships and vessels, and of all the artificers in the service of the navy, at the port where he is settled.

1. To stop; to make a stop; with at. The mind checks at any vigorous undertaking. – Locke.
2. To clash or interfere. I have to check with business. – Bacon.
3. To strike with repression. – Dryden. [These applications are not frequent.]

1. To stop; to restrain; to hinder; to curb. It signifies to put an entire stop to motion, or to restrain its violence, and cause an abatement; to moderate.
2. To rebuke; to chide or reprove. – Shak.
3. To compare any paper with its counterpart or with a cipher, with a view to ascertain its authenticity; to compare corresponding papers; to control by a counter-register.
4. In seamanship, to ease off a little of a rope, which is too stiffly extended; also, to stopper the cable. – Mar. Dict.

1. A word of warning denoting that the king is in danger; such a menace of a player's king by an adversary's move as would, if it were any other piece, expose it to immediate capture. A king so menaced is said to be in check, and must be made safe at the next move.
2. To make a move which puts an adversary's piece, esp. his king, in check] to put in check.
3. To clash or interfere.
   
   
   [R.] Bacon.
4. Checkered; designed in checks.
5. A condition of interrupted or impeded progress; arrest; stop; delay; as, to hold an enemy in check.
   
   

   Which gave a remarkable check to the first progress of Christianity.
   Addison.

   No check, no stay, this streamlet fears.
   Wordsworth.

6. To put a sudden restraint upon; to stop temporarily; to hinder; to repress; to curb.
   
   

   So many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression.
   Burke.

7. To act as a curb or restraint.
   
   

   It [his presence] checks too strong upon me.
   Dryden.

8. Whatever arrests progress, or limits action; an obstacle, guard, restraint, or rebuff.
   
   

   Useful check upon the administration of government.
   Washington.

   A man whom no check could abash.
   Macaulay.

9. To verify, to guard, to make secure, by means of a mark, token, or other check; to distinguish by a check; to put a mark against (an item) after comparing with an original or a counterpart in order to secure accuracy; as, to check an account; to check baggage.
10. To crack or gape open, as wood in drying; or to crack in small checks, as varnish, paint, etc.
11. A mark, certificate, or token, by which, errors may be prevented, or a thing or person may be identified; as, checks placed against items in an account; a check given for baggage; a return check on a railroad.
12. To chide, rebuke, or reprove.
    
    

    The good king, his master, will check him for it.
    Shak.

13. To turn, when in pursuit of proper game, and fly after other birds.
    
    

    And like the haggard, check at every feather
    That comes before his eye.
    Shak.

14. A written order directing a bank or banker to pay money as therein stated. See Bank check, below.
15. To slack or ease off, as a brace which is too stiffly extended.
16. A woven or painted design in squares resembling the patten of a checkerboard; one of the squares of such a design; also, cloth having such a figure.
17. To make checks or chinks in; to cause to crack; as, the sun checks timber.
    
    

    Syn. -- To restrain; curb; bridle; repress; control; hinder; impede; obstruct; interrupt; tally; rebuke; reprove; rebuff.

18. The forsaking by a hawk of its proper game to follow other birds.
19. Small chick or crack.
    
    

    Bank check, a written order on a banker or broker to pay money in his keeping belonging to the signer. -- Check book, a book containing blank forms for checks upon a bank. -- Check hook, a hook on the saddle of a harness, over which a checkrein is looped. -- Check list, a list or catalogue by which things may be verified, or on which they may be checked. -- Check nut (Mech.), a secondary nut, screwing down upon the primary nut to secure it. Knight. -- Check valve (Mech.), a valve in the feed pipe of a boiler to prevent the return of the feed water. -- To take check, to take offense. [Obs.] Dryden.

    Syn. -- Hindrance; setback; interruption; obstruction; reprimand; censure; rebuke; reproof; repulse; rebuff; tally; counterfoil; counterbalance; ticket; draft.