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under a bond of certain peculiar rules; especially, such an association of knights in the Middle Ages, or a body in modern times taking a similar form, membership of which confers some distinction. -- Military tenure, tenure of land, on condition of performing military service.

A fur esteemed in the Middle Ages as a part of costume. It is uncertain whether it was the fur of one animal only or of different animals.

specifically, one of a class of German poets and musicians who flourished from about the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the fourteenth century. They were chiefly of noble birth, and made love and beauty the subjects of their verses.

In the Middle Ages, one of an order of men who subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sang verses to the accompaniment of a harp or other instrument; in modern times, a poet; a bard; a singer and harper; a musician. Chaucer.

Of or pertaining to the middle division of the Tertiary. -- n.

A thin-bladed dagger; so called, in the Middle Ages, because used to give the death wound or "mercy" stroke to a fallen adversary.

ar of one inch square, supported flatwise at two points one foot apart, and loaded in the middle between the points of support. Rankine.

A small flat bastion, raised in the middle of an overlong curtain.

An extra middle seam made at the junction of two breadths of canvas, ordinarily joined by only two rows of stitches.

nds of the Indian Ocean, which blow from the southwest from the latter part of May to the middle of September, and from the northeast from about the middle of October to the middle of December.

As if under the influence of the moon; in the manner of a lunatic. [Obs.] Middleton.

e style of the Moors. Moorish architecture, the style developed by the Moors in the later Middle Ages, esp. in Spain, in which the arch had the form of a horseshoe, and the ornamentation admitted no representation of animal life. It has many points of resemblance to the Arabian and Persian styles, but should be disting…

ia), which formed a separate church of Moravia, a northern district of Austria, about the middle of the 15th century. After being nearly extirpated by persecution, the society, under the name of The Renewed Church of the United Brethren, was reëstablished in 1722-35 on the estates of Count Zinzendorf in Saxony. Called…

of the genus Momotus, having a strong serrated beak. In most of the species the two long middle tail feathers are racket-shaped at the tip, when mature. The bird itself is said by some writers to trim them into this shape. They feed on insects, reptiles, and fruit, and are found from Mexico to Brazil. The name is deri…

To destroy; to put an end to. [Canst thou] murder thy breath in middle of a word Shak.

A kind of shell limestone, whose strata form the middle one of the three divisions of the Triassic formation in Germany. See Chart, under Geology.

The middle point of the nasofrontal suture.

The middle or body of a church, extending from the transepts to the principal entrances, or, if there are no transepts, from the choir to the principal entrance, but not including the aisles.

A mark or depression in the middle of the abdomen; the umbilicus. See Umbilicus.belly button in humans

icular glumes of most grasses; the navicular bone. Navicular bone. (Anat.) (a) One of the middle bones of the tarsus, corresponding to the centrale; -- called also scaphoid. (b) A proximal bone on the radial side of the carpus; the scaphoid. -- Navicular disease (Far.), a disease affecting the navicular bone, or the a…