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The first or anterior segment of the thorax in insects. See Illusts. of Butterfly and Coleoptera.

Of or pertaining to the inner pterygoid plate, or pterygoid bone, and the lower jaw.

Accumulation of air, or other gas, and of pus, in the pleural cavity.

To make lax or loose; to make less close, firm, rigid, tense, or the like; to slacken; to loosen; to open; as, to relax a rope or cord; to relax the muscles or sinews. Horror . . . all his joints relaxed. Milton. Nor served it to relax their serried files. Milton.

Capable of being relaxed.

A medicine that relaxes; a laxative.

The act or process of relaxing, or the state of being relaxed; as, relaxation of the muscles; relaxation of a law.

Having the quality of relaxing; laxative. -- n.

The withdrawing, or open renunciation, of a suit in court by the plaintiff, by which he forever lost his right of action. Blackstone.

The arrangement of the roots of plants.

A kind of chopping instrument for trimming the edges of roofing slates.

A powerful instrument of brass, curved somewhat like the Roman buccina, or tuba.

Of or pertaining to rocks; living among rocks; as, a saxatile plant.

n to a numerous family of brass wind instruments with valves, invented by Antoine Joseph Sax (known as Adolphe Sax), of Belgium and Paris, and much used in military bands and in orchestras.

Any species of marine bivalve shells of the genus Saxicava. Some of the species are noted for their power of boring holes in limestone and similar rocks.

Of or pertaining to the saxicavas. -- n.

Boring, or hollowing out, rocks; -- said of certain mollusks which live in holes which they burrow in rocks. See Illust. of Lithodomus.

Stone-inhabiting; pertaining to, or having the characteristics of, the stonechats.

Growing on rocks.

us of exogenous polypetalous plants, embracing about one hundred and eighty species. See Saxifrage.