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Hutton. -- Axis of the Ionic capital (Arch.), a line passing perpendicularly through the middle of the eye of the volute. -- Neutral axis (Mech.), the line of demarcation between the horizontal elastic forces of tension and compression, exerted by the fibers in any cross section of a girder. -- Optic axis of a cryst…

t the wind strikes them alternately in front and behind, in order to keep the ship in the middle of a river or channel while the current or tide carries the vessel against the wind. Hence: (Fig.) To take opposite positions alternately; to assert and deny. [Colloq.] -- To back out, To back down, to retreat or withdraw f…

A French school of the middle of the 19th century centering in the village of Barbizon near the forest of Fontainebleau. Its members went straight to nature in disregard of academic tradition, treating their subjects faithfully and with poetic feeling for color, light, and atmosphere. It is exemplified, esp. in landsca…

A member of the radical section of the Democratic party in New York, about the middle of the 19th century, which was hostile to extension of slavery, public debts, corporate privileges, etc., and supported Van Buren against Cass for president in 1848; --opposed to Hunker. [Political Cant, U. S.]

A round vessel or cask, of greater length than breadth, and bulging in the middle, made of staves bound with hoops, and having flat ends or heads.

of skirt ( often of velvet or brocade, but sometimes of mailed armor) which hung from the middle to about the knees, or lower. [Obs.]

, anciently supposed to have a specially important function in the animal economy, as the middle vein of the right arm.

The middle of the anterior margin of the great foramen of the skull.

The richest kind of stuff used in garments in the Middle Ages, the web being gold, and the woof silk, with embroidery : -- made originally at Bagdad. [Spelt also baudkin, baudkyn, bawdekin, and baldakin.] Nares.

A drop of sweat or other liquid. "Cold beads of midnight dew." Wordsworth.

the eyes to, or fix them upon, an object; to look; to see. And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne, . . . a lamb as it had been slain. Rev. v. 6.

Belted cattle, cattle originally from Dutch stock, having a broad band of white round the middle, while the rest of the body is black; -- called also blanketed cattle.

e frames or ribs that form the ship's body from the keel to the top of the sides; as, the midship bend.

A solid consisting of a double twelve-sided pyramid; -- so called because the planes of this form occur on crystals of beryl.

treatise on beasts; esp., one of the moralizing or allegorical beast tales written in the Middle Ages.

There was some speech of marriage Betwixt myself and her. Shak. Betwixt and between, in a midway position; so-so; neither one thing nor the other. [Colloq.]

A bewildering tangle or confusion. He . . . soon lost all traces of it amid bewilderment of tree trunks and underbrush. Hawthorne.

Cleft to the middle or slightly beyond the middle; opening with a cleft; divided by a linear sinus, with straight margins.

In a tumid, swelling, blustering manner; haughtily; violently. He brawleth bigly. Robynson (More's Utopia. )

The protuberant part of a cask, which is usually in the middle.