Search the Dictionary

Lydian stone, or black jasper, a variety of siliceous or flinty slate, of a grayish or bluish black color. It is employed to test the purity of gold, the amount of alloy being indicated by the color left on the stone when rubbed by the metal.

-- Base course. (Arch.) (a) The first or lower course of a foundation wall, made of large stones of a mass of concrete; -- called also foundation course. (b) The architectural member forming the transition between the basement and the wall above. -- Base hit (Baseball), a hit, by which the batsman, without any error o…

the half title in a page preceding the full title page of a book. Bastard ashlar (Arch.), stones for ashlar work, roughly squared at the quarry. -- Bastard file, a file intermediate between the coarsest and the second cut. -- Bastard type (Print.), type having the face of a larger or a smaller size than the body; e.g…

ent as not to bastardize the child, if born, though not begotten, in lawful wedlock. Blackstone.

one pound of copper. -- Bath note, a folded writing paper, 8 1/2 by 14 inches. -- Bath stone, a species of limestone (oölite) found near Bath, used for building.

Impure limestone. [Prov. Eng.] Wright.

An inclosure with mud or stone walls, for keeping cattle; a fortified inclosure. [Obs.] Spenser.

ioned in the Bible (Gen. ii. 12, and Num. xi. 7), variously taken to be a gum, a precious stone, or pearls, or perhaps a kind of amber found in Arabia.

light open wagon with two or more seats. -- Raised beach, an accumulation of water-worn stones, gravel, sand, and other shore deposits, above the present level of wave action, whether actually raised by elevation of the coast, as in Norway, or left by the receding waters, as in many lake and river regions.…

The horizontal surface of a building stone; as, the upper and lower beds.

called the phragmocone, prolonged, on one side, into a delicate concave blade; the thunderstone. It is the internal shell of a cephalopod related to the sepia, and belonging to an extinct family. The belemnites are found in rocks of the Jurassic and Cretaceous ages. -- Bel*em*nit"ic, a.

A nearly cubical block of some tough stone, esp. granite, used as a material for street pavements. Its usual diameter is 5 to 7 inches.

A stoneware jug of a pattern originated in the neighborhood of Cologne, Germany, in the 16th century. It has a bearded face or mask supposed to represent Cardinal Bellarmine, a leader in the Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, following the Reformation; -- called also graybeard, longbeard.

rish or town. Bastards also are settled in the parishes to which the mothers belong. Blackstone.

h; hence, at the foot of. "Beneath the mount." Ex. xxxii. 19. Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies. Pope.

his death a stranger abated or entered and kept the heir out. This is now abolished. Blackstone.

Fit; suitable; becoming. [Archaic] In beseemly order sitten there. Shenstone.

Sprinkled over; strewed. His face besprent with liquid crystal shines. Shenstone. The floor with tassels of fir was besprent. Longfellow.

the slant or inclination of such surface; as, to give a bevel to the edge of a table or a stone slab; the bevel of a piece of timber.

A fight with stones between two parties of boys. [Scot.] Jamieson.