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A kind of verse consisting in English of twelve syllables. The needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Pope.

One versed in algebra.

A fixed star, in Medusa's head, in the constellation Perseus, remarkable for its periodic variation in brightness.

Wholly different in nature; foreign; adverse; inconsistent (with); incongruous; -- followed by from or sometimes by to; as, principles alien from our religion. An alien sound of melancholy. Wordsworth. Alien enemy (Law), one who owes allegiance to a government at war with ours. Abbott.

To withdraw, as the affections; to make indifferent of averse, where love or friendship before subsisted; to estrange; to wean; -- with from. The errors which . . . alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. Macaulay. The recollection of his former life is a dream that only the more alienates him…

A current which periodically changes or reverses its direction of flow.

Of or pertaining to a lover or to love making; amatory; as, amatorial verses.

urisdiction in different places. The priesthood . . . before was very ambulatory, and dispersed into all families. Jer. Taylor.

A nonsense verse; a rigmarole, with apparent meaning, which on further attention proves to be meaningless. [Written also amphigouri.]

A prefix of one or two unaccented syllables to a verse properly beginning with an accented syllable.

f three syllables, the first two short, or unaccented, the last long, or accented; the reverse of the dactyl. In Latin d, and in English in-ter-vene, are examples of anapests.

Pertaining to an anapest; consisting of an anapests; as, an anapestic meter, foot, verse. -- n.

-line game, any of eight spaces, 7 inches by 3½, lying along a cushion and bisected transversely by a balk line. Object balls in an anchor space are treated as in balk.

Experienced; versed. [Obs.] Though [he] was the youngest brother, yet he was the most ancient in the business of the realm. Berners.

Remarks by way of criticism and usually of censure; adverse criticism; reproof; blame. He dismissed their commissioners with severe and sharp animadversions. Clarendon.

One versed in the knowledge of animalcules. Keith.

against; as, antagonistic forces. -- An*tag`o*nis"tic*al*ly, adv. They were distinct, adverse, even antagonistic. Milman.

r being before light; -- a word applied to assemblies of Christians, in ancient times of persecution, held before light in the morning. "Antelucan worship." De Quincey.

A description or definition contrary to that which is given by the adverse party. [R.]

Assuming man as the center or ultimate end; -- applied to theories of the universe or of any part of it, as the solar system. Draper.