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The inflicting of retributive punishment; satisfaction taken. [R.] Milton.

The act of the distrainer of goods, who, in an action of replevin, avows and justifies the taking in his own right. Blackstone.

To rouse from a state resembling sleep, as from death, stupidity., or inaction; to put into action; to give new life to; to stir up; as, to awake the dead; to awake the dormant faculties. I was soon awaked from this disagreeable reverie. Goldsmith. It way awake my bounty further. Shak. No sunny gleam awakes the trees.…

At work; in action. "Set awork." Shak.

At work; in action. [Archaic or Colloq.] Spenser.

xis of a crystal, the direction in which a ray of transmitted light suffers no double refraction. All crystals, not of the isometric system, are either uniaxial or biaxial. -- Optic axis, Visual axis (Opt.), the straight line passing through the center of the pupil, and perpendicular to the surface of the eye. -- Rad…

-- To put, or get, one's back up, to assume an attitude of obstinate resistance (from the action of a cat when attacked.). [Colloq.] -- To see the back of, to get rid of. -- To turn the back, to go away; to flee. -- To turn the back on one, to forsake or neglect him.

To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (as absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent). Spenser.

Secret slander; detraction. Backbiting, and bearing of false witness. Piers Plowman.

The action of bailing a person accused. Bailment . . . is the saving or delivery of a man out of prison before he hath satisfied the law. Dalton.

e, with a poised beam, which indicates, by weights suspended from one arm, the mutual attraction of oppositely electrified surfaces. Knight. -- Balance fish. (Zoöl) See Hammerhead. -- Balance knife, a carving or table knife the handle of which overbalances the blade, and so keeps it from contact with the table. -- B…

A special plea constituting a sufficient answer to plaintiff's action.

A barbarous, cruel, or brutal action; an outrage. A heinous barbarism . . . against the honor of marriage. Milton.

Without anything to cover up or conceal one's thoughts or actions; open to view; exposed. Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear ! Milton.

A purchase; also ( when not qualified), a gainful transaction; an advantageous purchase; as, to buy a thing at a bargain.

A machine, invented in the 17th century, worked by a form of reaction wheel. The water flows into a vertical tube and gushes from apertures in hollow horizontal arms, causing the machine to revolve on its axis.

tympanum, or tympanic cavity. -- Barrel organ, an instrument for producing music by the action of a revolving cylinder. -- Barrel vault. See under Vault.

acterized by enlargement of the thyroid gland, prominence of the eyeballs, and inordinate action of the heart; -- called also exophthalmic goiter. Flint.

k from public notice; indicating extreme or excessive modesty; shy; as, a bashful person, action, expression.

Apparently alkaline, as certain normal salts which exhibit alkaline reactions with test paper.