Search the Dictionary

A female servant employed to do housework, esp. to take care of the rooms. Housemaid's knee (Med.), a swelling over the knee, due to an enlargement of the bursa in the front of the kneepan; -- so called because frequently occurring in servant girls who work upon their knees.

Pertaining to, employed in, or produced by, the evolution of electricity by means of a battery in which water or steam is used. Hydro-electric machine (Physics), an apparatus invented by Sir William Armstrong of England for generating electricity by the escape of high-pressure steam from a series of jets connected with…

ted as a solution in water. It attacks all silicates, as glass or porcelain, is the agent employed in etching glass, and is preserved only in vessels of platinum, lead, caoutchouc, or gutta-percha.

structural form peculiar to any language; the genius or cast of a language. Idiom may be employed loosely and figuratively as a synonym of language or dialect, but in its proper sense it signifies the totality of the general rules of construction which characterize the syntax of a particular language and distinguish i…

Not called into active service; not turned to appropriate use; unemployed; as, idle hours. The idle spear and shield were high uphing. Milton.

Pertaining to, or employed in, imitation; as, imitational propensities.

ellectual notion we are at once encountered by the imparity of the object and the faculty employed upon it. I. Taylor.

impervious parts of bodies. Sir I. Newton. But, in the present order of things, not to be employed without impinging on God's justice. Bp. Warburton.

Not practicable; incapable of being performed, or accomplished by the means employed, or at command; impossible; as, an impracticable undertaking.

sed. Why such impress of shipwrights Shak. Impress gang, a party of men, with an officer, employed to impress seamen for ships of war; a press gang. -- Impress money, a sum of money paid, immediately upon their entering service, to men who have been impressed.

act of making profitable use or applicaton of anything, or the state of being profitably employed; a turning to good account; practical application, as of a doctrine, principle, or theory, stated in a discourse. "A good improvement of his reason." S. Clarke. I shall make some improvement of this doctrine. Tillotson.…

Doubtful; not of definite form. Opus incertum (Anc. Arch.), a kind of masonry employed in building walls, in which the stones were not squared nor laid in courses; rubblework.

industry; pertaining to industry, or the arts and products of industry; concerning those employed in labor, especially in manual labor, and their wages, duties, and rights. The great ideas of industrial development and economic social amelioration. M. Arnold.

he maintenance of industry are much greater in proportion to those which are likely to be employed in the maintenance of idleness, than they were two or three centuries ago. A. Smith.

An averment employed in pleading, to point the application of matter otherwise unintelligible; an interpretative parenthesis thrown into quoted matter to explain an obscure word or words; -- as, the plaintiff avers that the defendant said that he (innuendo the plaintiff) was a thief. Wharton.

The root of a Brazilian rubiaceous herb (Cephaëlis Ipecacuanha), largely employed as an emetic; also, the plant itself; also, a medicinal extract of the root. Many other plants are used as a substitutes; among them are the black or Peruvian ipecac (Psychotria emetica), the white ipecac (Ionidium Ipecacuanha), the basta…

g.), a particular case in the solution of a cubic equation, in which the formula commonly employed contains an imaginary quantity, and therefore fails in its application. -- Ir`re*du"ci*ble*ness, n. -- -- Ir`re*du"ci*bly, adv.

e of contempt for a flatterer of persons high in social or official life; as, the Jenkins employed by a newspaper. [Colloq. Eng. & U.S.] G. W. Curtis.

The state or profession of those employed in the administration of justice; also, the dispensing or administration of justice. The honor of the judges in their judicature is the king's honor. Bacon.

ontents in an endless variety of beautiful colors and symmetrical forms. It has been much employed in arts of design. Shifting like the fragments of colored glass in the kaleidoscope. G. W. Cable.