Search the Dictionary

An agent employed to advance, in a covert manner, the interests of his employers; one sent out by any power that is at war with another, to create dissatisfaction among the people of the latter. Buzzing emissaries fill the ears Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears. Dryden.

t of enchanting; the production of certain wonderful effects by the aid of demons, or the agency of supposed spirits; the use of magic arts, spells, or charms; incantation. After the last enchantment you did here. Shak.

Anything used to effect a purpose; any device or contrivance; an agent. Shak. You see the ways the fisherman doth take To catch the fish; what engines doth he make Bunyan. Their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust. Shak.

Fertilized by the agency of insects; -- said of plants in which the pollen is carried to the stigma by insects.

An epulotic agent.

The termination of many English words, denoting the agent; -- applied either to men or things; as in hater, farmer, heater, grater. At the end of names of places, -er signifies a man of the place; as, Londoner, i. e., London man.

lium or spawn of this fungus infecting grains of rye and wheat. It is a powerful remedial agent, and also a dangerous poison, and is used as a means of hastening childbirth, and to arrest bleeding.

.), masses of stone which have been transported from their original resting places by the agency of water, ice, or other causes. -- Erratic phenomena, the phenomena which relate to transported materials on the earth's surface.

The agency by which the law excludes evidence to dispute certain admissions, which the policy of the law treats as indisputable. Wharton. Stephen. Burrill.

ically, the process by which a large quantity of alcohol is transformed into ether by the agency of a small amount of sulphuric, or ethyl sulphuric, acid.

liquid by the action of sulphiric acid on alcohol. It appears to be the active catalytic agent in the process of etherification.

To convert from a liquid or solid state into vapor (usually) by the agency of heat; to dissipate in vapor or fumes.

f institutions, manners, language, civilization, and every product of human activity. The agencies and laws of the process are variously explained by different philosophrs. Evolution is to me series with development. Gladstone.

nce used in preparing remedies as a vehicle or medium of administration for the medicinal agents. Chambers.

An agent or influence which arouses vital activity, or produces increased action, in a living organism or in any of its tissues or parts; a stimulant.

A written official recognition of a consul or commercial agent, issued by the government to which he is accredited, and authorizing him to exercise his powers in the place to which he is assigned.

An exfoliative agent. Wiseman.

under which they occur; this is observation; or, secondly, by putting in action causes or agents over which we have control, and purposely varying their combinations, and noticing what effects take place; this is experiment. Sir J. Herschel.

An instrument or agent causing explosion; an exploder; also, an explosive.

An explosive agent; a compound or mixture susceptible of a rapid chemical reaction, as gunpowder, or nitro-glycerine.