Search the Dictionary

take their names from this negative element or radical. Those which contain no oxygen are sometimes called hydracids in distinction from the others which are called oxygen acids or oxacids.

To make sour or acid in a moderate degree; to sour somewhat. Arbuthnot.

One of the small grains or drupelets which make up some kinds of fruit, as the blackberry, raspberry, etc.

Something given or done in return for a favor, message, etc. Smollett.

The end of a verse or psalm, or something added thereto, to be sung by the people, by way of a response.

r ornaments, placed on the apex and at the basal angles of a pediment. Acroteria are also sometimes placed upon the gables in Gothic architecture. J. H. Parker.

A formal solemn writing, expressing that something has been done. Abbott.

on of Anthozoa, including those which have simple tentacles and do not form stony corals. Sometimes, in a wider sense, applied to all the Anthozoa, expert the Alcyonaria, whether forming corals or not.

A process or condition of acting or moving, as opposed to rest; the doing of something; exertion of power or force, as when one body acts on another; the effect of power exerted on one body by another; agency; activity; operation; as, the action of heat; a man of action. One wise in council, one in action brave. Pope.…

Applied to verbs which assert that the subject acts upon or affects something else; transitive.

Something actually received; real, as distinct from estimated, receipts. [Cant] The accounts of revenues supplied . . . were not real receipts: not, in financial language, "actuals," but only Egyptian budget estimates. Fortnightly Review.

e form or another, whether as restlessness, ennui, dissatisfaction, or the imagination of something desirable. J. Grote.

A prickle growing on the bark, as in some brambles and roses. Lindley.

High, or shrill, in respect to some other sound; -- opposed to grave or low; as, an acute tone or accent.

Having acute lobes, as some leaves.

A phrase used adjectively sometimes of meretricious attempts to catch or win popular favor.

A stone imagined by some to be of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substance of extreme hardness; but in modern minerology it has no technical signification. It is now a rhetorical or poetical name for the embodiment of impenetrable hardness. Opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his amp…

To make suitable; to fit, or suit; to adjust; to alter so as to fit for a new use; -- sometimes followed by to or for. For nature, always in the right, To your decays adapts my sight. Swift. Appeals adapted to his [man's] whole nature. Angus. Streets ill adapted for the residence of wealthy persons. Macaulay.…

Something added to a coat of arms, as a mark of honor; -- opposed to abatement. Vector addition (Geom.), that kind of addition of two lines, or vectors, AB and BC, by which their sum is regarded as the line, or vector, AC.

Something added. [R.] Bacon.