By-stroke
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An incidental or slyly given stroke; a gratuitous addition or indirect action.
"But we do not suppose the House of Commons will quite surrender its authority to them on a point of such importance, or allow its intentions to be frustrated by a by-stroke of the Commissioners, without further inquiry."
- 2 A secondary attack.
"The carriage of Lord Wilsdown rattled swiftly up to the door of Prince de Rosenberg's house in Park-lane, and the footman springing nimbly to the ground, produced a roll of thunder from the knocker, that would have done credit to a by-stroke of the cloud compelling Zeus ."
Example
More examples"But we do not suppose the House of Commons will quite surrender its authority to them on a point of such importance, or allow its intentions to be frustrated by a by-stroke of the Commissioners, without further inquiry."
Etymology
From by- + stroke.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.