LOCK, noun [Latin floccus, Eng. lock ]

1. lock in its primary sense, is any thing that fastens; but we now appropriate the word to an instrument composed of a spring, wards, and a bolt of iron or steel, used to fasten doors, chests and the like. The bolt is moved by a key.

2. The part of a musket or fowling-piece or other fire-arm, which contains the pan, trigger, etc.

3. The barrier or works of a canal, which confine the water, consisting of a dam, banks or walls, with two gates or pairs of gates, which may be opened or shut at pleasure.

4. A grapple in wrestling.

5. Any inclosure.

6. A tuft of hair; a plexus of wool, hay or other like substance; a flock; a ringlet of hair.

A lock of hair will draw more than a cable rope.

LOCK of water, is the measure equal to the contents of the chamber of the locks by which the consumption of water on a canal is estimated.

LOCK'-KEEPER, noun One who attends the locks of a canal.

LOCK'-PADDLE, noun A small sluse that serves to fill and empty a lock

LOCK'-SIL, noun An angular piece of timber at the bottom of a lock against which the gates shut.

LOCK'-WEIR, noun A paddle-weir, in canals, an over-fall behind the upper gates, by which the waste water of the upper pound is let down through the paddle-holes into the chamber of the lock

LOCK, verb transitive

1. To fasten with a particular instrument; as, to lock a door; to lock a trunk.

2. To shut up or confine, as with a lock; as, to be locked in a prison. lock the secret in your breast.

3. To close fast. The frost locks up our rivers.

4. To embrace closely; as, to lock one in the arms.

5. To furnish with locks, as a canal.

6. To confine; to restrain. Our shipping was locked up by the embargo.

7. In fencing, to seize the sword-arm of an antagonist, by turning the left arm around it, after closing the parade, shell to shell, in order to disarm him.

LOCK, verb intransitive

1. To become fast. The door locks close.

2. To unite closely by mutual insertion; as, they lock into each other.