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he utmost; to use or dispose of to the greatest advantage. "Let there be freedom to carry their commodities where they can make the best of them." Bacon. (b) To reduce to the least possible inconvenience; as, to make the best of ill fortune or a bad bargain.

e. [Only in p. p.] They shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: . . . and curse their king and their God. Is. viii. 21. Many far worse bestead than ourselves. Barrow.

to precedence; a superior, as in merit, social standing, etc.; -- usually in the plural. Their betters would hardly be found. Hooker. For the better, in the way of improvement; so as to produce improvement. "If I have altered him anywhere for the better." Dryden.

Belonging to, or participated in by, two, and involving reciprocal action or affecting their mutual relation; as, opposition between science and religion. An intestine struggle, open or secret, between authority and liberty. Hume.

To deviate or incline from an angle of 90 Their houses are very ill built, the walls bevel. Swift.

A kind of gear in which the two wheels working together lie in different planes, and have their teeth cut at right angles to the surfaces of two cones whose apices coincide with the point where the axes of the wheels would meet.

a bias upon the thoughts. South. Morality influences men's lives, and gives a bias to all their actions. Locke.

io is two. -- Binary star (Astron.), a double star whose members have a revolution round their common center of gravity. -- Binary theory (Chem.), the theory that all chemical compounds consist of two constituents of opposite and unlike qualities.

Pertaining to psychical phenomena in their relation to the living organism or to the general phenomena of life.

The physical phenomena of organized bodies, in opposition to their organic or vital phenomena.

The classification of living organisms according to their structural character; taxonomy.

A combination of two short rectangular glass prisms cemented together at their diagonal faces so as to form a cube; -- called also optical cube. It is used in one form of photometer.

Hunting for, or taking, birds' nests or their contents.

ether animal or vegetable. Poets are far rarer births that kings. B. Jonson. Others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is able to shift for itself. Addison.

culiar mark or blemish on the body at birth. Most part of this noble lineage carried upon their body for a natural birthmark, . . . a snake. Sir T. North.

Mournful; sad; distressing; painful; pitiable. The Egyptians . . . made their lives bitter with hard bondage. Ex. i. 14. Bitter apple, Bitter cucumber, Bitter gourd. (Bot.) See Colocynth. -- Bitter cress (Bot.), a plant of the genus Cardamine, esp. C. amara. -- Bitter earth (Min.), tale earth; calcined magnesia. --…

w death terrible. Bacon. That was the full time they used to wear blacks for the death of their fathers. Sir T. North.

normities practiced in the English monasteries and religious houses, compiled by order of their visitors under Henry VIII., to hasten their dissolution.

bands of pirates and adventurers. It took a prominent part in fighting the French during their hostilities with Anam, 1873-85.

Lacking animation and intelligence, or their associated characteristics, as expression of face, look, etc.; expressionless; vacant. "Blank and horror-stricken faces." C. Kingsley. The blank . . . glance of a half returned consciousness. G. Eliot.