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trim

1. To make trim; to put in due order for any purpose; to make right, neat, or pleasing; to adjust. The hermit trimmed his little fire. (goldsmith)

2. To dress; to decorate; to adorn; to invest; to embellish; as, to trim a hat. A rotten building newly trimmed over. (milton) I was trimmed in Julia's gown. (Shak)

3. To make ready or right by cutting or shortening; to clip or lop; to curtail; as, to trim the hair; to trim a tree. And trimmed the cheerful lamp.

4. To dress, as timber; to make smooth.

5. To adjust, as a ship, by arranging the cargo, or disposing the weight of persons or goods, so equally on each side of the center and at each end, that she shall sit well on the water and sail well; as, to trim a ship, or a boat. To arrange in due order for sailing; as, to trim the sails.

6. To rebuke; to reprove; also, to beat. To trim in, to fit, as a piece of timber, into other work. To trim up, to dress; to put in order. I found her trimming up the diadem On her dead mistress. (Shak)

Origin: OE. Trimen, trumen, AS. Trymian, trymman, to prepare, dispose, make strong, fr. Trum firm, strong; of uncertain origin.

1. Dress; gear; ornaments. Seeing him just pass the window in his woodland trim. (Sir W. Scott)

2. Order; disposition; condition; as, to be in good trim. The trim of an encounter.

3. 78d

The state of a ship or her cargo, ballast, masts, etc, by which she is well prepared for sailing.

4. The lighter woodwork in the interior of a building; especially, that used around openings, generally in the form of a molded architrave, to protect the plastering at those points. In ballast trim, that adjustment, with reference to the wind, witch is best adapted to impel the ship forward.