Search the Dictionary

The scientific description of rocks; that department of science which investigates the constitution of rocks; petrology.

of a real object; a fancy; a notion. Cudworth. Figures or little features, of which the description had produced in you no phantasm or expectation. Jer. Taylor.

A description of celestial phenomena, as rainbows, etc.

reparing and preserving drugs, and of compounding and dispensing medicines according to prescriptions of physicians; the occupation of an apothecary or a pharmaceutical chemist.

A description, history, or explanation of phenomena. "The phenomenology of the mind." Sir W. Hamilton.

A description of the laws of the human voice, or sounds uttered by the organs of speech.

A description of seaweeds.

The science of describing plants in a systematic manner; also, a description of plants.

The science of plants; a description of the kinds and properties of plants; botany. Sir T. Browne.

A prescription intended to humor or satisfy. To sing placebo, to agree with one in his opinion; to be complaisant to. Chaucer.

responding to the perspective plane in perspective; -- called also principal plane. (b) (Descriptive Geom.) One of the planes to which points are referred for the purpose of determining their relative position in space. -- Plane of refraction or reflection (Opt.), the plane in which lie both the incident ray and the r…

The science of spiritual being or phenomena of any description.

A description of the lungs. Dunglison.

A prescription made up of many medicines or ingredients. Dunglison.

Hence, any graphic or vivid delineation or description of a person; as, a portrait in words. Portrait bust, or Portrait statue, a bust or statue representing the actual features or person of an individual; -- in distinction from an ideal bust or statue.

The act or process of portraying; description; delineation.

strange postures We have seen him set himself. Shak. The posture of a poetic figure is a description of his heroes in the performance of such or such an action. Dryden.

An account or description of rivers; potamology.

To claim by prescription; to claim a title to a thing on the ground of immemorial use and enjoyment, that is, by a custom having the force of law.

c exercise, performance, or entertainment; a preliminary sketch. Programme music (Mus.), descriptive instrumental music which requires an argument or programme to explain the meaning of its several movements.