The Hebrews usually secured their doors by bars of wood or iron (Isaiah 45:2; 1 Kings 4:3). These were the locks originally used, and were opened and shut by large keys applied through an opening in the outside (Judges 3:24). (see KEY.)

Lock of hair (Judges 16:13, 19; Ezek. 8:3; Numbers 6:5, etc.).

Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (n.) A tuft of hair; a flock or small quantity of wool, hay, or other like substance; a tress or ringlet of hair.

2. (n.) Anything that fastens; specifically, a fastening, as for a door, a lid, a trunk, a drawer, and the like, in which a bolt is moved by a key so as to hold or to release the thing fastened.

3. (n.) A fastening together or interlacing; a closing of one thing upon another; a state of being fixed or immovable.

4. (n.) A place from which egress is prevented, as by a lock.

5. (n.) The barrier or works which confine the water of a stream or canal.

6. (n.) An enclosure in a canal with gates at each end, used in raising or lowering boats as they pass from one level to another; -- called also lift lock.

7. (n.) That part or apparatus of a firearm by which the charge is exploded; as, a matchlock, flintlock, percussion lock, etc.

8. (n.) A device for keeping a wheel from turning.

9. (n.) A grapple in wrestling.

10. (v. t.) To fasten with a lock, or as with a lock; to make fast; to prevent free movement of; as, to lock a door, a carriage wheel, a river, etc.

11. (v. t.) To prevent ingress or access to, or exit from, by fastening the lock or locks of; -- often with up; as, to lock or lock up, a house, jail, room, trunk. etc.

12. (v. t.) To fasten in or out, or to make secure by means of, or as with, locks; to confine, or to shut in or out -- often with up; as, to lock one's self in a room; to lock up the prisoners; to lock up one's silver; to lock intruders out of the house; to lock money into a vault; to lock a child in one's arms; to lock a secret in one's breast.

13. (v. t.) To link together; to clasp closely; as, to lock arms.

14. (v. t.) To furnish with locks; also, to raise or lower (a boat) in a lock.

15. (v. t.) To seize, as the sword arm of an antagonist, by turning the left arm around it, to disarm him.

16. (v. i.) To become fast, as by means of a lock or by interlacing; as, the door locks close.