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form, or cuneatic characters; the oldest written characters used in the country about the Tigris and Euphrates, and subsequently in Persia, and abounding among the ruins of Persepolis, Nineveh, and Babylon. See Cuneiform.

willingly submitted to by the artisan, who can . . . compensate his additional toil and fatigue. Hume.

The act of ascertaining; a reducing to certainty; a finding out by investigation; discovery. The positive ascertainment of its limits. Burke.

To mitigate; to moderate; to appease; to abate; to diminish. [Archaic] Chaucer.

Resembling the aspergillum in form; as, an aspergilliform stigma. Gray.

To soften, in a figurative sense; to allay, mitigate, ease, or lessen, as heat, pain, or grief; to appease or pacify, as passion or tumult; to satisfy, as appetite or desire. Refreshing winds the summer's heat assuage. Addison. To assuage the sorrows of a desolate old man Burke. The fount at which the panting mind assu…

Mitigation; abatement.

Mitigating; tranquilizing; soothing. [R.] Music her soft assuasive voice applies. Pope.

The investigation of the relation between the sun, moon, and stars, and the weather. -- As`*tro*me`te*or`o*log"ic*al, a. -- As`tro*me`te*or*ol"o*gist, n.

Public disgrace or stigma; infamy; loss of civil rights. Mitford.

t pressure under which the barometer stands at 760 millimeters, at a temperature of 0º Centigrade, at the level of the sea, and in the latitude of Paris. Sir W. Thomson.

To set to work upon, as upon a task or problem, or some object of labor or investigation.

The chief law officer of the state, empowered to act in all litigation in which the law-executing power is a party, and to advise this supreme executive whenever required. Wharton.

A kind of French stewpan with a steamtight lid. Knight.

Destitute of any vestige of organic life, or at least of animal life; anterior to the existence of animal life; formed when there was no animal life on the globe; as, the azoic. rocks. Azoic age (Geol.), the age preceding the existence of animal life, or anterior to the paleozoic tome. Azoic is also used as a noun, age…

eep from falling; as, to balance a plate on the end of a cane; to balance one's self on a tight rope.

Anything that heals or that mitigates pain. "Balm for each ill." Mrs. Hemans. Balm cricket (Zoöl.), the European cicada. Tennyson. -- Balm of Gilead (Bot.), a small evergreen African and Asiatic tree of the terebinthine family (Balsamodendron Gileadense). Its leaves yield, when bruised, a strong aromatic scent; and fr…

Having the qualities of balsam; containing, or resembling, balsam; soft; mitigative; soothing; restorative.

To make or prove to be a bastard; to stigmatize as a bastard; to declare or decide legally to be illegitimate. The law is so indulgent as not to bastardize the child, if born, though not begotten, in lawful wedlock. Blackstone.

Any species of the genus Ursus, and of the closely allied genera. Bears are plantigrade Carnivora, but they live largely on fruit and insects.