harness

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The gear or tackle, other than a yoke, with which a draft animal pulls a vehicle or implement.
2. n. Something resembling such gear or tackle, as the arrangement of straps used to hold a parachute to the body.
3. n. A device that raises and lowers the warp threads on a loom.
4. n. Archaic Armor for a man or horse.
5. v. To put a harness on (a draft animal).
6. v. To fasten by the use of a harness.
7. v. To bring under control and direct the force of: If you can harness your energy, you will accomplish a great deal.
8. idiom. in harness On duty or at work.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The defensive armor and weapons of a soldier, especially of a knight; in general, and especially in modern poetical use, a suit of armor. The trappings of the war-horse are also sometimes included in the term. Harness was the early name for body-armor of all kinds. Modern writers have tried to discriminate between harness as the armor of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and armor as confined to the plate suite of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but armor is the modern English word for defensive garments of all sorts, and harness in this sense is a poetical archaism.
2. n. Clothing; dress; garments.
3. n. The working-gear or tackle of a horse, mule, ass, goat, dog, or other animal (except the ox) used for draft; the straps, collar, bridle, lines, traces, etc., put upon a draft-animal to enable it to work and to guide its actions. See cut in next column.
4. n. Hence Figuratively, working-tackle of any kind; an equipment for any kind of labor; also, that which fits or makes ready for labor: as, his duties keep him constantly in the harness.
5. n. The apparatus in a loom by which the sets of warp-threads are shifted alternately to form the shed. It consists of the heddles and their means of support and motion. Also called mounting.
6. n. The mechanism by which a large bell is suspended and tolled.
7. n. Temper; humor: alluding to the behavior of a horse in harness.
8. To dress in armor; equip with armor for war, as a man or horse.
9. To fit out; equip; dress.
10. To equip or furnish for defense.
11. To put harness or working-tackle on, as a horse.
12. To fit up or put together with metal mountings.
13. To fasten to a boat by the toggle-iron and tow-line, as a whale.
14. n. Nautical, an obsolete term for the furniture of a ship.

Wiktionary

1. n. countable A restraint or support, especially one consisting of a loop or network of rope or straps.
2. n. countable A collection of wires or cables bundled and routed according to their function.
3. v. transitive to place a harness on something; to tie up or restrain
4. v. transitive to capture, control or put to use

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Originally, the complete dress, especially in a military sense, of a man or a horse; hence, in general, armor.
2. n. The equipment of a draught or carriage horse, for drawing a wagon, coach, chaise, etc.; gear; tackling.
3. n. The part of a loom comprising the heddles, with their means of support and motion, by which the threads of the warp are alternately raised and depressed for the passage of the shuttle.
4. v. To dress in armor; to equip with armor for war, as a horseman; to array.
5. v. Fig.: To equip or furnish for defense.
6. v. To make ready for draught; to equip with harness, as a horse. Also used figuratively.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. exploit the power of
2. v. put a harness
3. n. stable gear consisting of an arrangement of leather straps fitted to a draft animal so that it can be attached to and pull a cart
4. v. control and direct with or as if by reins
5. n. a support consisting of an arrangement of straps for holding something to the body (especially one supporting a person suspended from a parachute)
6. v. keep in check