boltering

Verb

bolter (third-person singular simple present bolters, present participle boltering, simple past and past participle boltered)

1. (dialectal) To smear or become smeared with a grimy substance.
   • Methinks I see them with their boltered hair, Staring and grinning in thy gentle face, And in their ruthless hands their daggers drawn,1592, anonymous author, Arden of Faversham
2. To sift or filter through a sieve or bolter.
   • A thousand times the day, our Sieve is crowned; A thousand times 'tis drained: Let the Sieve once he strained, And, grain by grain, around Ye shall behold the ground Covered with folk, cast from the boltering Sieve.1888, John Addington Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: It̲alian literature, page 392
3. To fish using a bolter.
   • Those who are not boltering or spillering in the spring are crabbing.1915, British Sea Anglers' Society, Quarterly - Issues 31-45, page 77
4. To pound rapidly.
   • In Elliotson v. Feetham, 2 Bingham's N.C., 134, in 1835, the plaintiff a physician resideing in the parish of St. George, Hanover Square, in the county of Middlesex, and possessed of a house for a term of years, sued the defendant in case for a nuisance in carrying on an iron-mongery factory...1852, The Western Law Journal - Volume 9, page 446
5. To swim or turn sideways while eating.
   • Close observers of the habits of whales in more recent times however do not record this practice and it must be regarded as a fanciful belief which probably arose as Gunther (1949) suggests as a fisherman's explanation of the patches and their frequent association with boltering whales.1929, Discovery Reports - Volume 32, page 215
6. To miss a landing on an aircraft carrier by failing to catch the arresting gear wires with the aircraft's tailhook.
   • Commander Kleemann came back and boltered again on his second attempt. lt is unheard of for him to bolter twice in a row. Then on his third attempt he got aboard with an OK three-wire trap.1982, Bert Kinzey, F-14 A & B Tomcat: in detail & scale, page 46

See all 19 meanings of bolter