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Expressing, or expressed, in more words than are necessary; characterized by periphrase; circumlocutory. Periphrastic conjugation (Gram.), a conjugation formed by the use of the simple verb with one or more auxiliaries.

Of the nature of a phrase; consisting of a phrase; as, a phrasal adverb. Earlc.

The act or method of grouping the notes so as to form distinct musical phrases.

or excess of blood; as, a plethoric constitution; -- used also metaphorically. "Plethoric phrases." Sydney Smith. "Plethoric fullness of thought." De Quincey.

A little; -- used chiefly in phrases indicating the time or movement; as, poco più allegro, a little faster; poco largo, rather slow. Poco a poco Etym: [It.] (Mus.) Little by little; as, poco a poco crescendo, gradually increasing in loudness.

aid. (Law) (a) To call in as a helper one who has an interest in the cause. Bacon. (b) A phrase often used to signify claiming the benefit of an argument. See under Aid. Mozley & W.

particle used with a noun or pronoun (in English always in the objective case) to make a phrase limiting some other word; -- so called because usually placed before the word with which it is phrased; as, a bridge of iron; he comes from town; it is good for food; he escaped by running.

rument, as a deed of conveyance, a lease, letter of attorney, or other writing; as in the phrase, " Know all men by these presents," that is, by the writing itself, " per has literas praesentes; " -- in this sense, rarely used in the singular.

er stretched or cut of their legs to adapt them to its length; -- whence the metaphorical phrase, the bed of Procrustes.

An old and common saying; a phrase which is often repeated; especially, a sentence which briefly and forcibly expresses some practical truth, or the result of experience and observation; a maxim; a saw; an adage. Chaucer. Bacon.

A proverbial phrase.

to be paid, for anything bought. Berkeley. -- Worth, or At, [so many] years' purchase, a phrase by which the value or cost of a thing is expressed in the length of time required for the income to amount to the purchasing price; as, he bought the estate at a twenty years' purchase. To say one's life is not worth a day'…

Freedom from foreign idioms, or from barbarous or improper words or phrases; as, purity of style.

of four parts, things, or person; four things taken collectively; a group of four words, phrases, circumstances, facts, or the like. Delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers. Acts xii. 4. Ye elements, the eldest birth Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run. Milton. The triads and quaternions with which he loade…

A rabbinic expression or phraseology; a peculiarity of the language of the rabbins.

A wreck; destruction. [Obs., except in a few phrases.] Rack and ruin, destruction; utter ruin. [Colloq.] -- To go to rack, to perish; to be destroyed. [Colloq.] "All goes to rack." Pepys.

nequalities; -- opposed to conservative. In politics they [the Independents] were, to use phrase of their own time. "Root-and-Branch men," or, to use the kindred phrase of our own, Radicals. Macaulay.

te direction; want of direction, rule, or method; hazard; chance; -- commonly used in the phrase at random, that is, without a settled point of direction; at hazard. Counsels, when they fly At random, sometimes hit most happily. Herrick. O, many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant ! Sir W. Scott…

A mode of expressing words and phrases by pictures of objects whose names resemble those words, or the syllables of which they are composed; enigmatical representation of words by figures; hence, a peculiar form of riddle made up of such representations.

on; often with reference to the substitution of reciprocals for given quantities. See the Phrases below. Reciprocal equation (Math.), one which remains unchanged in form when the reciprocal of the unknown quantity is substituted for that quantity. -- Reciprocal figures (Geom.), two figures of the same kind (as triangl…