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A frame with radial arms, or a kind of spool, turning on an axis, on which yarn, threads, lines, or the like, are wound; as, a log reel, used by seamen; an angler's reel; a garden reel.

ike calcite), or to have positive, or negative, double refraction, according as the optic axis is the axis of least or greatest elasticity for light; a biaxial crystal is similarly designated when the same relation holds for the acute bisectrix. -- Index of refraction. See under Index. -- Refraction circle (Opt.), an…

The act of revolving, or turning round on an axis or a center; the motion of a body round a fixed point or line; rotation; as, the revolution of a wheel, of a top, of the earth on its axis, etc.

To turn or roll round on, or as on, an axis, like a wheel; to rotate, -- which is the more specific word in this sense. If the earth revolve thus, each house pear the equator must move a thousand miles an hour. I. Watts.

arm ( commonly a pistol) with several chambers or barrels so arranged as to revolve on an axis, and be discharged in succession by the same lock; a repeater.

o arranged as to appear and disappear at fixed intervals, either by being turned about an axis so as to show light only at intervals, or by having its light occasionally intercepted by a revolving screen.

A genus of marine Bryozoa in which the tubular cells have a centralchitinous axis and the tentacles are borne on a bilobed lophophore. It is the type of the order Pterobranchia, or Podostomata

A branch of inflorescence; the zigzag axis on which the florets are arranged in the spikelets of grasses.

The principal axis in a raceme, spike, panicle, or corymb.

Upright; erect from a base; having an upright axis; not oblique; as, right ascension; a right pyramid or cone.

ed by the revolution of a circle, or other figure, about an exterior straight line (as an axis) lying in the same plane as the circle or other figure.

To cause to revolve by turning over and over; to move by turning on an axis; to impel forward by causing to turn over and over on a supporting surface; as, to roll a wheel, a ball, or a barrel.

Rotating on an axis, or moving along a surface by rotation; turning over and over as if on an axis or a pivot; as, a rolling wheel or ball.

The descending, and commonly branching, axis of a plant, increasing in length by growth at its extremity only, not divided into joints, leafless and without buds, and having for its offices to fix the plant in the earth, to supply it with moisture and soluble matters, and sometimes to serve as a reservoir of nutriment…

Turning, as a wheel on its axis; pertaining to, or resembling, the motion of a wheel on its axis; rotatory; as, rotary motion. Rotary engine, steam engine in which the continuous rotation of the shaft is produced by the direct action of the steam upon rotating devices which serve as pistons, instead of being derived fr…

To turn, as a wheel, round an axis; to revolve.

The act of turning, as a wheel or a solid body on its axis, as distinguished from the progressive motion of a revolving round another body or a distant point; thus, the daily turning of the earth on its axis is a rotation; its annual motion round the sun is a revolution.

a rotary or rolling motion, as a muscle which partially rotates or turns some part on its axis.

Turning as on an axis; rotary.

To turn, as a wheel; to revolve on an axis or pivot; as, a wheel runs swiftly round.