Search the Dictionary

The quality or state of being other or different; alterity; oppositeness.

A stanza of eight lines of heroic verse, with three rhymes, the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet. It was used by Byron in "Don Juan," by Keats in "Isabella," by Shelley in "The Witch of Atlas," etc.

To rule or determine in a contrary way; to decide against; to abrogate or alter; as, God overrules the purposes of men; the chairman overruled the point of order. His passion and animosity overruled his conscience. Clarendon. These [difficulties] I had habitually overruled. F. W. Newman.

four or more equal parts by perpendicular lines, and of two different tinctures disposed alternately.

A kind of pseudomorph, in which there has been a change of physical characters without alteration of chemical composition, as the change of aragonite to calcite.

one mineral species to another, so as to involve a change in physical characters without alteration of chemical composition.

ed; especially, a kind of literary pleasantry, in which what is written on one subject is altered, and applied to another by way of burlesque; travesty. The lively parody which he wrote . . . on Dryden's "Hind and Panther" was received with great applause. Macaulay.

on, without fertilization, of cells capable of germination. It is one of the phenomena of alternate generation. Cf. Heterogamy, and Metagenesis.

e of ancestors; descent; lineage; genealogy; a register or record of a line of ancestors. Alterations of surnames . . . have obscured the truth of our pedigrees. Camden. His vanity labored to contrive us a pedigree. Milton. I am no herald to inquire of men's pedigrees. Sir P. Sidney. The Jews preserved the pedigrees of…

A body so suspended from a fixed point as to swing freely to and fro by the alternate action of gravity and momentum. It is used to regulate the movements of clockwork and other machinery.

cing to make perfect, or to bring to perfection; -- usually followed by of. "A perfective alteration." Fuller. Actions perfective of their natures. Ray.

olite (peridot). It also usually contains pyroxene, enstatite, chromite, etc. It is often altered to serpentine.

ing in the same state, or without any change that destroys form or character; remaining unaltered or unremoved; abiding; durable; fixed; stable; lasting; as, a permanent impression. Eternity stands permanent and fixed. Dryden. Permanent gases (Chem. & Physics), hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide; -- also c…

stationary commutator and rotating brushes, in which the exciting field is induced by the alternating current in a short-circuited magnetic core instead of being produced by an external magnet.

nits, objects, letters, etc., in all possible orders, one after the other; -- called also alternation. Cf. Combination, n., 4.

A machine for converting an alternating current into an alternating current of a different number of phases and the same frequency.

A charge of phase whereby an alternating current attains its maximum later or earlier. An inductance would cause a lag, a capacity would cause an advance, in phase.

A device for measuring the difference in phase of two alternating currents of electromotive forces.

The dephasing of the two parts of a single alternating current in two dissimilar branches of a given circuit.

The momentary current between two alternating-current generators when juxtaposed in parallel and not agreeing exactly in phase or period.