FILE

noun a roll or list.

2. file ·noun a shrewd or artful person.

3. file ·vt to smooth or polish as with a file.

4. file ·noun an orderly succession; a line; a row.

5. file ·noun course of thought; thread of narration.

6. file ·vt to make foul; to defile.

7. file ·noun anything employed to smooth, polish, or rasp, literally or figuratively.

8. file ·noun the line, wire, or other contrivance, by which papers are put and kept in order.

9. file ·vt to rub, smooth, or cut away, with a file; to sharpen with a file; as, to file a saw or a tooth.

10. file ·vi to march in a file or line, as soldiers, not abreast, but one after another;

— generally with off.

11. file ·vt to put upon the files or among the records of a court; to note on (a paper) the fact date of its reception in court.

12. file ·vt to bring before a court or legislative body by presenting proper papers in a regular way; as, to file a petition or bill.

13. file ·noun a steel instrument, having cutting ridges or teeth, made by indentation with a chisel, used for abrading or smoothing other substances, as metals, wood, ·etc.

14. file ·noun an orderly collection of papers, arranged in sequence or classified for preservation and reference; as, files of letters or of newspapers; this mail brings english files to the 15th instant.

15. file ·vt to set in order; to arrange, or lay away, ·esp. as papers in a methodical manner for preservation and reverence; to place on file; to insert in its proper place in an arranged body of papers.

xvi. file ·noun a row of soldiers ranged one behind another;

— in contradistinction to rank, which designates a row of soldiers standing abreast; a number consisting the depth of a body of troops, which, in the ordinary modern formation, consists of two men, the battalion standing two deep, or in two ranks.