Search the Dictionary

To disturb the relative position of the particles of, as of a liquid, by passing something through it; to agitate; as, to stir a pudding with a spoon. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred. Shak.

ce, blocks of ice floating in a mass together in some definite direction. -- Stream tin, particles or masses of tin ore found in alluvial ground; -- so called because a stream of water is the principal agent used in separating the ore from the sand and gravel. -- Stream works (Cornish Mining), a place where an alluvi…

The path of a constituent particle of a flowing fluid undisturbed by eddies or the like.

a stream line; designating a motion or flow that is free from turbulence, like that of a particle in a streamline; hence, designating a surface, body, etc., that is designed so as to afford an unbroken flow of a fluid about it, esp. when the resistance to flow is the least possible; as, a streamline body for an automo…

o cast or to throw loosely apart; -- used of solids, separated or separable into parts or particles; as, to strew seed in beds; to strew sand on or over a floor; to strew flowers over a grave. And strewed his mangled limbs about the field. Dryden. On a principal table a desk was open and many papers [were] strewn about…

Arrangement of parts, of organs, or of constituent particles, in a substance or body; as, the structure of a rock or a mineral; the structure of a sentence. It [basalt] has often a prismatic structure. Dana.

f molecular action, that is, the greatest distance at which there is cohesion between two particles. Particles lying below this film, being equally acted on from all sides, are in equilibrium as to forces of cohesion, but those in the film are on the whole attracted inward, and tension results.

The state of a solid when its particles are mixed with, but undissolved in, a fluid, and are capable of separation by straining; also, any substance in this state.

A small part of a sentence or discourse; anything concise or short; a particle. Before any syllable of the law of God was written. Hooker. Who dare speak One syllable against him Shak.

Expansive force; the force with which the particles of a body, as a gas, tend to recede from each other and occupy a larger space; elastic force; elasticity; as, the tension of vapor; the tension of air.

Consisting of earth; earthy; as, terreous substances; terreous particles. [Obs.]

A particle expressing comparison, used after certain adjectives and adverbs which express comparison or diversity, as more, better, other, otherwise, and the like. It is usually followed by the object compared in the nominative case. Sometimes, however, the object compared is placed in the objective case, and than is t…

A particle; a minute part; a jot; an iota. It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. Luke xvi. 17. Every tittle of this prophecy is most exactly verified. South.

in washing ores by violent agitation in water, in order to separate the lighter or earhy particles; -- called also tozing, and treloobing, in Cornwall. Pryce.

The slender, hairlike cell which receives the fertilizing particles, or antherozoids, in red seaweeds. -- Trich`o*gyn"ic, a.

An inseparable verbal prefix or particle. It is prefixed: (a) To verbs to express the contrary, and not the simple negative, of the action of the verb to which it is prefixed; as in uncoil, undo, unfold. (b) To nouns to form verbs expressing privation of the thing, quality, or state expressed by the noun, or separation…

, or from side to side, in any fluid or elastic medium, propagated continuously among its particles, but with no translation of the particles themselves in the direction of the propagation of the wave; a wave motion; a vibration.

ith an invisible fluid only; emptiness; void; vacuum. A vacuity is interspersed among the particles of matter. Bentley. God . . . alone can answer all our longings and fill every vacuity of our soul. Rogers.

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…