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consisting of a membrane supported by rays, or little bony or cartilaginous ossicles, and serving to balance and propel it in the water.

A method of preserving gilding unburnished, by touching with size. Knolles.

o withdraw from any suffering or undertaking, from pain or danger; to fail in doing or perserving; to show signs of yielding or of suffering; to shrink; to wince; as, one of the parties flinched from the combat. A child, by a constant course of kindness, may be accustomed to bear very rough usage without flinching or c…

An instrument for observing or exhibiting fluorescence.

Examination of an object, as the human body, by exposing it to the X rays and observing the shadow cast upon a fluorescent screen; cryptoscopy.

Serving to form; derivative; not radical; as, a termination merely formative.

To fall out; to happen. It fortuned the same night that a Christian, serving a Turk in the camp, secretely gave the watchmen warning. Knolles.

A connecting fold of membrane serving to support or restrain any part; as, the frænum of the tongue.

emption from the power and control of another; liberty; independence. Made captive, yet deserving freedom more. Milton.

Serving to express the frequent repetition of an action; as, a frequentative verb. -- n.

Pertaining to the foundation or basis; serving for the foundation. Hence: Essential, as an element, principle, or law; important; original; elementary; as, a fundamental truth; a fundamental axiom. The fundamental reasons of this war. Shak. Some fundamental antithesis in nature. Whewell. Fundamental bass (Mus.), the ro…

A boy; fellow; esp., a serving boy or man; a waiter; -- in Eng. chiefly applied to French waiters.

Having in the head a sensation of whirling or reeling about; having lost the power of preserving the balance of the body, and therefore wavering and inclined to fall; lightheaded; dizzy. By giddy head and staggering legs betrayed. Tate.

One of the ropes or chains serving as stays for the dolphin striker or the bowsprit; -- called also gobrope and gaubline.

An instrument for recording, preserving, and reproducing sounds, the record being a tracing of a phonautograph etched in some solid material. Reproduction is accomplished by means of a system attached to an elastic diaphragm.

Serving to gratify; agreeable. [Obs.] Sir T. Herbert.

kneel till to the ground they grow. Shak. Growing cell, or Growing slide, a device for preserving alive a minute object in water continually renewed, in a manner to permit its growth to be watched under the microscope. -- Grown over, covered with a growth. -- To grow out of, to issue from, as plants from the soil, or…

The chief room in a castle or manor house, and in early times the only public room, serving as the place of gathering for the lord's family with the retainers and servants, also for cooking and eating. It was often contrasted with the bower, which was the private or sleeping apartment. Full sooty was her bower and eke…

Requiring, deserving, or foreboding death by the halter. "What a hanging face!" Dryden.

Capable of being, or deserving to be, hated; odious; detestable.