Also 9 longe, lounge. [f. LUNGE sb.2]
1. intr. a. Fencing. To make a thrust with a foil or rapier. b. Boxing. To deliver a straightforward blow. Const. at.
1809. Roland, Fencing, 23. When longing in the position of tierce.
1814. Sporting Mag., XLIII. 55. Lunging with the right he hit short.
1836. Smart, Longe, to make a pass with a rapier.
1861. Thackeray, Four Georges, ii. (1862), 84. Lunging with his rapier like a fencing master.
1900. N. Munro in Blackw. Mag., Oct., 456/1. Count Victor … lunged and skewered him through the thick of the active arm.
c. quasi-trans. with cognate obj. To deliver (a kick, a thrust); also with out.
1735. Gentl. Mag., May, 252. If Savage lunge’d a thrust, And brought the youth a victim to the dust.
1847. Thackeray, Christm. Bks. (1872), 33. The Mulligan … lunged out a kick.
2. trans. To drive or thrust with or as with a lunge. Also refl. said of a heavy body (= 3).
1841. J. Mills, Old Eng. Gentl., xxvii. II. 206. M’Donald plunged the rowels deep into his flanks, and lunging him with all his power, hurled the excited creature to the ground.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. i. What he had in tow, lunged itself at him sometimes in an awful manner when the boat was checked.
1875. Buckland, Log-bk., 140. The scorpion instantly lunged his sting into him.
3. intr. To move with a lunge; to make a sudden forward movement; to rush. Also with up.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 102. [Fish] at the worm no nibbles more repeat, But lunge from night in sheltering flag-retreat.
1827. Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 330. He [an elephant] lounged furiously at the bars.
1831. De Quincey, in Blackw. Mag., XXIX. 63. [He] made for a fauteuil standing opposite to the fire. Into this he lunged.
1859. G. Meredith, R. Feverel, xxvii. Ripton lunged for the claret jug.
1880. Mrs. Whitney, Odd or Even? viii. Farmer Heybrook’s old brown mare came lungeing up the steep hill.
1900. Longm. Mag., Nov., 67. The jolting and swaying of the cart, as it lunged over the ruts, helped us.
Hence Lunging ppl. a.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, II. iii. Parrying the Slogger’s lunging hits.
