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In Portugal and Brazil, the title given to a member of the higher classes.

-- a title in Spain, formerly given to noblemen and gentlemen only, but now common to all classes. Don is used in Italy, though not so much as in Spain France talks of Dom Calmet, England of Dom Calmet, England of Dan Lydgate. Oliphant.

A degree of the first class both in classics and mathematics.

doubt; not obvious, clear, or certain; questionable; not decided; not easy to be defined, classed, or named; as, a doubtful case, hue, claim, title, species, and the like. Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good. Shak. Is it a great cruelty to expel from our abode the enemy of our peace, or even the doubtful friend [i.…

nd are divided by the arbitrary decree of God, and in his eternal foreknowledge, into two classes, the elect and the reprobate.

d feet and a bill resembling that of a duck (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). It belongs the subclass Monotremata and is remarkable for laying eggs like a bird or reptile; -- called also duckbill, platypus, mallangong, mullingong, tambreet, and water mole. -- To make ducks and drakes, to throw a flat stone obliquely, so as…

of understanding; wanting readiness of apprehension; stupid; doltish; blockish. "Dull at classical learning." Thackeray. She is not bred so dull but she can learn. Shak.

The class Echinodermata which includes the sea urchins. They have a calcareous, usually more or less spheroidal or disk-shaped, composed of many united plates, and covered with movable spines. See Spatangoid, Clypeastroid. [Written also Echinidea, and Echinoida.]

A division of Annelida which includes the genus Echiurus and allies. They are often classed among the Gephyrea, and called the armed Gephyreans.

n or selected; as, an eclectic method; an eclectic magazine. Eclectic physician, one of a class of practitioners of medicine, who select their modes of practice and medicines from all schools; formerly, sometimes the same as botanic physician. [U.S.] -- Eclectic school. (Paint.) See Bolognese school, under Bolognese.…

A subclass of fishes, comprising the sharks, the rays, and the Chimæra. The skeleton is mainly cartilaginous.

of persons in a nation or state who are entitled to vote in an election, or any distinct class or division of them. The middle-class electorate of Great Britain. M. Arnold.

Applied to books or editions (esp. of the Greek New Testament and the classics) printed and published by the Elzevir family at Amsterdam, Leyden, etc., from about 1592 to 1680; also, applied to a round open type introduced by them. The Elzevir editions are valued for their neatness, and the elegant small types used. Br…

rging from the deep." Dryden. Those who have emerged from very low, some from the lowest, classes of society. Burke.

Peculiar to a district or particular locality, or class of persons; as, an endemic disease.

yledon, with the first leaves alternate. The endogens constitute one of the great primary classes of plants, and included all palms, true lilies, grasses, rushes, orchids, the banana, pineapple, etc. See Exogen.

A Linnæan class of plants having nine stamens.

An estate in fee entailed, or limited in descent to a particular class of issue.

One of the subclasses of Crustacea, including a large number of species, many of them minute. The group embraces several orders; as the Phyllopoda, Ostracoda, Copepoda, and Pectostraca. See Copepoda, Phyllopoda, and Cladocera.

m performance available at the current state of the technology, and therefore refers to a class of machines in general, not a specific machine. push the envelope Increase the capability of some type of machine or system; -- usu. by technological development.