Tire. n.s. [tuyr, Dutch.]

1. Rank; row.

   Your lowest tire of ordnance must lie four feet clear above water, when all loading is in, or else those your best pieces will be of small use at sea, in any grown weather that makes the billows to rise. Raleigh's Essays.

   Stood rank'd of seraphim another row,
   In posture to displode their second tire
   Of thunder. Milton's Par. Lost, b. vi.

   In all those wars there were few triremes, most of them being of one tire of oars of fifty banks. Arbuthnot.

2. [Corrupted from tiar or tiara, or attire.] A head-dress.

   On her head she wore a tire of gold,
   Adorn'd with gems and ouches. Fairy Queen.

   Here is her picture: let me see;
   If I had such a tire, this face of mine
   Were full as lovely as is this of hers. Shakespeare.

   The judge of torments, and the king of tears,
   Now fills a burnish'd throne of quenchless fire,
   And for his old fair robes of light he wears
   A gloomy mantle of dark flame, the tire
   That crowns his hated head on high, appears. Crashaw.

   When the fury took her stand on high,
   A hiss from all the snaky tire went round. Pope.

3. Furniture; apparatus.

                   Saint George's worth
   Enkindles like desire of high exploits:
   Immediate sieges, and the tire of war
   Rowl in thy eager mind. Philips.

   When they first peep forth of the ground, they shew their whole tire of leaves, then flowers, next seeds. Woodward.