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ficer or agent of a government, a corporation, or an employer, whose duty it is to pay salaries, wages, etc., and keep account of the same.

ying or examining; to inspect by traversing; specifically, to inspect officially the boundaries of, as of a town or parish, by walking over the whole line.

An annual survey of boundaries, as of town, a parish, a forest, etc.

gation (Gram.), a conjugation formed by the use of the simple verb with one or more auxiliaries.

To unite; to join; to combine. Fuller. His adversaries . . . pieced themselves together in a joint opposition against him. Fuller.

One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost. Pile bridge, a bridge of which the roadway is supported on piles. -- Pile cap, a beam resting upon and connecting the heads of piles. -- Pile driver, or Pile engine, an apparatus for driving do…

A zodiacal constellation, including the first point of Aries, which is the vernal equinoctial point; the Fish.

learners can not so well take the ply. Bacon. Boswell, and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, . . . did not understand the secret plies of his character. W. Irving. The czar's mind had taken a strange ply, which it retained to the last. Macaulay.

A receptacle which bears many ovaries.

e liver; as, the portal vein, which enters the liver at the porta, and divides into capillaries after the manner of an artery.

firmly fastened to the ground, and capable of being turned as the direction of the wind varies. -- Post and stall (Coal Mining), a mode of working in which pillars of coal are left to support the roof of the mine.

To harass and perplex; to worry. "Pothers and wearies himself." Locke.

Caries of the vertebræ, frequently resulting in curvature of the spine and paralysis of the lower extremities; -- so named from Percival Pott, an English surgeon. Pott's fracture, a fracture of the lower end of the fibula, with displacement of the tibia. Dunglison.

A pullet from which the ovaries have been removed to produce fattening; hence, a fat pullet.

A district within certain boundaries; a minor territorial or jurisdictional division; as, an election precinct; a school precinct.

In the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, a title of certain dignitaries below the rank of bishop. Apostolic prefect (R. C. Ch.), the head of a mission, not of episcopal rank. Shipley.

A system of voting, as at primaries, in which the voters are allowed to indicate on their ballots their preference (usually their first and second choices) between two or more candidates for an office, so that if no candidate receives a majority of first choices the one receiving the greatest number of first and second…

The order of prelates, taken collectively; the body of ecclesiastical dignitaries. "Divers of the reverend prelacy, and other most judicious men." Hooker.

course, work, design, or business; something introductory or preparatory; as, the preliminaries to a negotiation or duel; to take one's preliminaries the year before entering college.

A guard. [Obs.] "Heavenly presidiaries." Bp. Hall.