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Hence, figuratively, a tendency of feeling, opinion, or the like, in a direction contrary to what is publicly shown; an unseen influence or tendency; as, a strong undercurrent of sentiment in favor of a prisoner. All the while there was a busy undercurrent in her. G. Eliot.

doctrine that virtue is founded in utility, or that virtue is defined and enforced by its tendency to promote the highest happiness of the universe. J. S. Mill.

Peculiar temper or temperament; tendency or turn of mind; a particular disposition or cast of genius; humor; strain; quality; also, manner of speech or action; as, a rich vein of humor; a satirical vein. Shak. Certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins. Bacon. Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein. Waller.…

The act of verging or approaching; tendency; approach. [R.]

Suffixes denoting course or direction to; motion or tendency toward; as in backward, or backwards; toward, or towards, etc.

Course or direction of motion or process; tendency of action; advance. If that way be your walk, you have not far. Milton. And let eternal justice take the way. Dryden.

and steer a cause Against the weather gauge of laws. Hudibras. -- Weather helm (Naut.), a tendency on the part of a sailing vessel to come up into the wind, rendering it necessary to put the helm up, that is, toward the weather side. -- Weather shore (Naut.), the shore to the windward of a ship. Totten. -- Weather ti…

The quantity of heaviness; comparative tendency to the center of the earth; the quantity of matter as estimated by the balance, or expressed numerically with reference to some standard unit; as, a mass of stone having the weight of five hundred pounds. For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell, Once set on ringing, with hi…

Tendency to generate wind or gas; tendency to produce flatulence; as, the windiness of vegetables.

Full of wrinkles; having a tendency to be wrinkled; corrugated; puckered. G. Eliot. His old wrinkly face grew quite blown out at last. Carlyle.

om citraconic acid as an oily substance having a bittersweet taste; -- so called from its tendency to form its anhydride.

alot; excess of zeal; fanatical devotion to a cause. Enthusiasm, visionariness, seems the tendency of the German; zeal, zealotry, of the English; fanaticism, of the French. Coleridge.