Bas·tard a.
 1. Begotten and born out of lawful matrimony; illegitimate. See Bastard, n., note.
 2. Lacking in genuineness; spurious; false; adulterate; -- applied to things which resemble those which are genuine, but are really not so.
    That bastard self-love which is so vicious in itself, and productive of so many vices.   --Barrow.
 3. Of an unusual or irregular make or proportion; as, a bastard musket; a bastard culverin. [Obs.]
 4. Print. Abbreviated, as the half title in a page preceding the full title page of a book.
 Bastard ashlar Arch., stones for ashlar work, roughly squared at the quarry.
 Bastard file, a file intermediate between the coarsest and the second cut.
 Bastard type Print., type having the face of a larger or a smaller size than the body; e. g., a nonpareil face on a brevier body.
 Bastard wing Zool., three to five quill feathers on a small joint corresponding to the thumb in some mammalia; the alula.


 File n.
 1. A steel instrument, having cutting ridges or teeth, made by indentation with a chisel, used for abrading or smoothing other substances, as metals, wood, etc.
 Note: ☞ A file differs from a rasp in having the furrows made by straight cuts of a chisel, either single or crossed, while the rasp has coarse, single teeth, raised by the pyramidal end of a triangular punch.
 2. Anything employed to smooth, polish, or rasp, literally or figuratively.
    Mock the nice touches of the critic's file.   --Akenside.
 3. A shrewd or artful person. [Slang]
    Will is an old file in spite of his smooth face.   --Thackeray.
 Bastard file, Cross file, etc. See under Bastard, Cross, etc.
 Cross-cut file, a file having two sets of teeth crossing obliquely.
 File blank, a steel blank shaped and ground ready for cutting to form a file.
 File cutter, a maker of files.
 Second-cut file, a file having teeth of a grade next finer than bastard.
 Single-cut file, a file having only one set of parallel teeth; a float.
 Smooth file, a file having teeth so fine as to make an almost smooth surface.