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The great circle of the celestial sphere, coincident with the plane of the earth's equator; -- so called because when the sun is in it, the days and nights are of equal length; hence called also the equinoctial, and on maps, globes, etc., the equinoctial line. Equator of the sun or of a planet (Astron.), the great circ…

Wandering; deviating from an appointed course, or from a direct path; roving. Seven planets or errant stars in the lower orbs of heaven. Sir T. Browne.

se; roving about without a fixed destination; wandering; moving; -- hence, applied to the planets as distinguished from the fixed stars. The earth and each erratic world. Blackmore.

Exercising its highest influence; -- said of a planet. [Obs.] Chaucer.

That place of a planet in the zodiac in which it was supposed to exert its strongest influence.

Away from the mesial plane of the body; lateral. External angles. (Geom.) See under Angle.

een from one point, or which is presented toward a certain direction; one of the bounding planes of a solid; as, a cube has six faces.

A little face; a small, plane surface; as, the facets of a diamond. [Written also facette.]

or bent like a sickle; as, a falcate leaf; a falcate claw; -- said also of the moon, or a planet, when horned or crescent- formed.

To interrupt the continuity of (rock strata) by displacement along a plane of fracture; -- chiefly used in the p.p.; as, the coal beds are badly faulted.

To turn to a horizontal plane; -- said of oars. The feathering oar returns the gleam. Tickell. Stopping his sculls in the air to feather accurately. Macmillan's Mag.

block (Naut.), a long tackle block having two sheaves of different diameters in the same plane, instead of side by side as in a common double block. Knight. -- Fiddle bow, fiddlestick. -- Fiddle fish (Zoöl.), the angel fish. -- Fiddle head, an ornament on a ship's bow, curved like the volute or scroll at the head o…

A plane for making a rabbet. Fillister screw had, a short cylindrical screw head, having a convex top.

being split, cleft, or divided in the direction of the grain, like wood, or along natural planes of cleavage, like crystals. This crystal is a pellucid, fissile stone. Sir I. Newton.

achinist, tailor, etc. The carpenter . . . marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes. Is. xliv. 13.

e same apparent position and distance with respect to each other, thus distinguished from planets and comets.

tal surface, or nearly so, without prominences or depressions; level without inclination; plane. Though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk. Milton.

Eveness of surface; want of relief or prominence; the state of being plane or level.

To reduce to an even surface or one approaching evenness; to make flat; to level; to make plane.

ience of floating bodies. Center of flotation. (Shipbuilding) (a) The center of any given plane of flotation. (b) More commonly, the middle of the length of the load water line. Rankine. -- Plane, or Line, of flotation, the plane or line in which the horizontal surface of a fluid cuts a body floating in it. See Bearin…