Search the Dictionary

Bricks alternately projecting at the end of a wall, in order that they may be bonded into a continuation of it when the remainder is carried up. Toothing plane, a plane of which the iron is formed into a series of small teeth, for the purpose of roughening surfaces, as of veneers.

Cylindrical with alternate swellings and contractions; having the surface covered with rounded prominences.

r quaver of the voice in singing, or of the sound of an instrument, produced by the rapid alternation of two contiguous tones of the scale; as, to give a trill on the high C. See Shake.

Successive course; opportunity enjoyed by alternation with another or with others, or in due order; due chance; alternate or incidental occasion; appropriate time. "Nobleness and bounty . . . had their turns in his [the king's] nature." His turn will come to laugh at you again. Denham . Every one has a fair turn to be…

Alternately disposed on exactly opposite sides of the stem so as to from two ranks; distichous.

aves, which successively rise or swell rise or swell and fall; pertaining to a propagated alternating motion, similar to that of waves. Undulatory theory, or Wave theory (of light) (Opt.), that theory which regards its various phenomena as due to undulations in an ethereal medium, propagated from the radiant with immen…

he like; -- rarely occurring except in the phrase ups and downs. [Colloq.] Ups and downs, alternate states of elevation and depression, or of prosperity and the contrary. [Colloq.] They had their ups and downs of fortune. Thackeray.

Amphibole resulting from the alternation of pyroxene by paramorphism. It is not uncommon in massive eruptive rocks.

e act of vacillating; a moving one way and the other; a wavering. His vacillations, or an alternation of knowledge and doubt. Jer. Taylor.

es. It is represented in heraldry by a series of small shields placed close together, and alternately white and blue. Fairholt. No vair or ermine decked his garment. Sir W. Scott. Counter vair (Her.), a fur resembling vair, except in the arrangement of the patches or figures.

Having the capacity of varying or changing; capable of alternation in any manner; changeable; as, variable winds or seasons; a variable quantity.

ng; a partial change in the form, position, state, or qualities of a thing; modification; alternation; mutation; diversity; deviation; as, a variation of color in different lights; a variation in size; variation of language. The essences of things are conceived not capable of any such variation. Locke.…

To change to something else; to transmute; to exchange; to alternate. Gods, that never change their state, Vary oft their love and hate. Waller. We are to vary the customs according to the time and country where the scene of action lies. Dryden.

wear; as, to veer, or wear, a vessel. To veer and haul (Naut.), to pull tight and slacken alternately. Totten. -- To veer away or out (Naut.), to let out; to slacken and let run; to pay out; as, to veer away the cable; to veer out a rope.

vision. { 1. Acrogens. -- Plants usually with distinct stems and leaves, existing in two alternate conditions, one of which is nonsexual and sporophoric, the other sexual and oöphoric. Divided into Vascular Acrogens, or Pteridophyta, having the sporophoric plant conspicuous and consisting partly of vascular tissue, as…

To have the constituent particles move to and fro, with alternate compression and dilation of parts, as the air, or any elastic body; to quiver.

A limited reciprocating motion of a particle of an elastic body or medium in alternately opposite directions from its position of equilibrium, when that equilibrium has been disturbed, as when a stretched cord or other body produces musical notes, or particles of air transmit sounds to the ear. The path of the particle…

Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange. God made two great lights . . . To illuminate the earth and rule the day In their vicissitude, and rule the night. Milton.

oem written in tercets with but two rhymes, the first and third verse of the first stanza alternating as the third verse in each successive stanza and forming a couplet at the close. E. W. Gosse.

A greenish chloritic mineral common in certain igneous rocks, as diabase, as a result of alternation.