Search the Dictionary

A rectangular garment or piece of cloth, usually made of the checkered material called tartan, but sometimes of plain gray, or gray with black stripes. It is worn by both sexes in Scotland.

A diseased state in plants in which there is an excessive development of small entangled twigs, instead of ordinary branches.

To cut a groove in, as in a plank, or the edge of a board; especially, a rectangular groove to receive the end of a shelf or tread, the edge of a panel, a tongue, etc. To plow in, to cover by plowing; as, to plow in wheat. -- To plow up, to turn out of the ground by plowing.plow ahead, to continue in spite of obstacle…

To entangle; to embarrass; to overcome. [Obs.] Plunged and graveled with three lines of Seneca. Sir T. Browne.

The right line drawn through the two points of contact of the two tangents drawn from a given point to a given conic section. The given point is called the pole of the line. If the given point lies within the curve so that the two tangents become imaginary, there is still a real polar line which does not meet the curve…

Any large ape; especially, the chimpanzee and the orang-outang.

In the theory of gravitation, or of other forces acting in space, a function of the rectangular coordinates which determine the position of a point, such that its differential coefficients with respect to the coördinates are equal to the components of the force at the point considered; -- also called potential function…

A transparent body, with usually three rectangular plane faces or sides, and two equal and parallel triangular ends or bases; -- used in experiments on refraction, dispersion, etc.

representing the sphere, the spherical surface being projected upon the surface of a cone tangent to the sphere, the point of sight being at the center of the sphere. -- Cylindric projection, a mode of representing the sphere, the spherical surface being projected upon the surface of a cylinder touching the sphere, th…

angles on paper, used in drawing or in plotting. It is of various forms, semicircular, rectangular, or circular.

To make intricate; to entangle. They disentangle from the puzzled skein. Cowper. The ways of Heaven are dark and intricate, Puzzled in mazes, and perplexed with error. Addison.

An arrangement of things by fives in a square or a rectangle, one being placed at each corner and one in the middle; especially, such an arrangement of trees repeated indefinitely, so as to form a regular group with rows running in various directions.

pegs set in it, used by domestic weavers to keep the warp of a proper width, and prevent tangling when it is wound upon the beam of the loom.

To undo the intricacies of; to disentangle.

The act of untwisting, or of disentangling.

A restangular longitudinal recess or groove, cut in the corner or edge of any body; a rabbet. See Rabbet.

To put on order; to make tidy; also, to free from entanglement or embarrassement; -- generally with up; as, to red up a house. [Prov. Eng. & Scot.]

complex ideas or obscure questions; to make clear or certain; to free from doubt; to disentangle; to unravel; to explain; hence, to clear up, or dispel, as doubt; as, to resolve a riddle. "Resolve my doubt." Shak. To the resolving whereof we must first know that the Jews were commanded to divorce an unbelieving Gentile…

A gladiator armed with a net for entangling his adversary and a trident for despatching him.

Armed with a net; hence, skillful to entangle. Scholastic retiary versatility of logic. Coleridge.