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Having branches in pairs, decussated, all nearly horizontal, and each pair at right angles with the next, as in the maple and lilac.

a body, starting from a given point, and descending solely by the force of gravity, will reach another given point in a shorter time than it could by any other path. This curve of quickest descent, as it is sometimes called, is, in a vacuum, the same as the cycloid.

An opening caused by the parting of any solid body; a crack or breach; a flaw. Stain or brack in her sweet reputation. J. Fletcher.

A stock at each end of a seine to keep it stretched.

s are represented by tangible points or dots. It was invented by Louis Braille, a French teacher of the blind.

æ or gills. Branchial arches, the bony or cartilaginous arches which support the gills on each side of the throat of fishes and amphibians. See Illustration in Appendix. -- Branchial clefts, the openings between the branchial arches through which water passes.

; made stronger by the addition of brandy; flavored or treated with brandy; as, brandied peaches.

distilled from other liquors, and in the United States to that distilled from cider and peaches. In northern Europe, it is also applied to a spirit obtained from grain. Brandy fruit, fruit preserved in brandy and sugar.

knee, placed across the stem of a ship to strengthen the fore part and unite the bows on each side. Totten.

An epitome. Each woman is a brief of womankind. Overbury.

A coast of armor for the body, consisting of scales or plates, sometimes overlapping each other, generally of metal, and sewed to linen or other material. It was worn in the Middle Ages. [Written also brigantine.] Jer. xlvi. 4. Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet, And brigandine of brass. Milton.…

A breach; ruin; downfall; peril. [Obs.] Chaucer.

works and natural salt lakes. See Artemia. -- Brine spring, a spring of salt water. -- Leach brine (Saltmaking), brine which drops from granulated salt in drying, and is preserved to be boiled again.

An awl; a bodkin; also, a wooden rod or pin, sharpened at each end, used by thatchers. [Prov. Eng.] Forby.

Hogged; so weakened in the frame as to droop at each end; -- said of a ship. Totten.

der Holland. -- Brown paper, dark colored paper, esp. coarse wrapping paper, made of unbleached materials. -- Brown spar (Min.), a ferruginous variety of dolomite, in part identical with ankerite. -- Brown stone. See Brownstone. -- Brown stout, a strong kind of proter or malt liquor. -- Brown study, a state of men…

The views or teachings of Robert Brown of the Brownists. Milton.

ich produces, in the axils of the upright stem, numerous small green heads, or "sprouts," each a cabbage in miniature, of one or two inches in diameter; the thousand-headed cabbage. -- Brussels wire ground, a ground for lace, made of silk, with meshes partly straight and partly arched.

Lye or suds in which cloth is soaked in the operation of bleaching, or in which clothes are washed.

he act or process of soaking or boiling cloth in an alkaline liquid in the operation of bleaching; also, the liquid used. Tomlinson.