Search the Dictionary

ining to the exordium of a discourse: introductory. The exordial paragraph of the second epistle. I. Taylor.

with the boiler has been cut off, by which it continues to exert pressure upon the moving piston.

Certain constitutions or decretal epistles, not at first included with others, but subsequently made a part of the canon law.

A letter or epistle; -- so called in civility or compliment; as, your favor of yesterday is received.

organs which are capable of developing into fruit after impregnation or fertilization; a pistillate plant.

rless plants; fecundation; impregnation. Close fertilization (Bot.), the fertilization of pistils by pollen derived from the stamens of the same blossom. -- Cross fertilization, fertilization by pollen from some other blossom. See under Cross, a.

To insult with a fico, or contemptuous motion. See Fico. [Obs.] When Pistol lies, do this, and fig me like The bragging Spaniard. Shak.

A gun, pistol, or any weapon from a shot is discharged by the force of an explosive substance, as gunpowder.

A pistachio nut. [Obs.] Johnson.

A lock for a gun or pistol, having a flint fixed in the hammer, which on stricking the steel ignites the priming.

The slender styles of the pistillate flowers of maize; also called silk.

liar parts or not. A complete flower consists of two essential parts, the stamens and the pistil, and two floral envelopes, the corolla and callyx. In mosses the flowers consist of a few special leaves surrounding or subtending organs called archegonia. See Blossom, and Corolla.

gia. They usually grow in wet places. -- Flowering plants, plants which have stamens and pistils, and produce true seeds; phenogamous plants; -- distinguished from flowerless plants. -- Flowering rush, a European rushlike plant (Butomus umbellatus), with an umbel of rosy blossoms.

The removable flange, or cover, of a piston. See Illust. of Piston.

A pump having a solid piston, or plunger, for drawing and forcing a liquid, as water, through the valves; in distinction from a pump having a bucket, or valved piston.

The solid piston of a force pump; the instrument by which water is forced in a pump.

ving elegant drooping flowers, with four sepals, four petals, eight stamens, and a single pistil. They are natives of Mexico and South America. Double-flowered varieties are now common in cultivation.

The plaited hemp used for packing a piston, as of the steam engine and its pumps.

for cutting off steam at a certain part of the stroke, so as to leave it to act upon the piston expansively; the cut-off. See under Expansion. -- Feed gear. See Feed motion, under Feed, n. -- Gear cutter, a machine or tool for forming the teeth of gear wheels by cutting. -- Gear wheel, any cogwheel. -- Running gea…

A rich glazed cake, with almonds, pistachios, filberts, or other nuts; also, a rich currant cake with almonds on the top.