Search the Dictionary

A benefice conferred on a person by the founder or patron, without either presentation or institution by the ordinary, or induction by his orders. See the Note under Benefice, n.,

-- Double plea (Law), a plea alleging several matters in answer to the declaration, where either of such matters alone would be a sufficient bar to the action. Stephen. -- Double point (Geom.), a point of a curve at which two branches cross each other. Conjugate or isolated points of a curve are called double points,…

A widow endowed, or having a jointure; a widow who either enjoys a dower from her deceased husband, or has property of her own brought by her to her husband on marriage, and settled on her after his decease. Blount. Burrill.

Formerly, a soldier who was taught and armed to serve either on horseback or on foot; now, a mounted soldier; a cavalry man.

A bridge of which either the whole or a part is made to be raised up, let down, or drawn or turned aside, to admit or hinder communication at pleasure, as before the gate of a town or castle, or over a navigable river or canal.

The leader was of an ugly look and gigantic stature; he acted like a drawcansir, sparing neither friend nor foe. Addison.

rt of gravy. -- Drawn fowl, an eviscerated fowl. -- Drawn game or battle, one in which neither party wins; one equally contested. -- Drawn fox, one driven from cover. Shak. -- Drawn work, ornamental work made by drawing out threads from fine cloth, and uniting the cross threads, to form a pattern.

To be in dread, or great fear. Dread not, neither be afraid of them. Deut. i. 29.

An instrument of percussion, consisting either of a hollow cylinder, over each end of which is stretched a piece of skin or vellum, to be beaten with a stick; or of a metallic hemisphere (kettledrum) with a single piece of skin to be so beaten; the common instrument for marking time in martial music; one of the pair of…

Having the quality of rapidly becoming dry. Drying oil, an oil which, either naturally or after boiling with oxide of lead, absorbs oxygen from the air and dries up rapidly. Drying oils are used as the bases of many paints and varnishes.

A coin, either of gold or silver, of several countries in Europe; originally, one struck in the dominions of a duke.

A large, elongated cell, either round or prismatic, usually found associated with woody fiber.

enesis in which the hybrids are sterile among themselves, but are fertile with members of either parent race.

ndividuals composing a number of objects, considered separately from the rest. It is used either with or without a following noun; as, each of you or each one of you. "Each of the combatants." Fielding.

A plowing of land. [Archaic] Neither earing nor harvest. Gen. xlv. 6.

ected from the earth to the moon, by which we see faintly, when the moon is near the sun (either before or after new moon), that part of the moon's disk unillumined by direct sunlight, or "the old moon in the arms of the new."

g the same center; -- said of circles, ellipses, spheres, etc., which, though coinciding, either in whole or in part, as to area or volume, have not the same center; -- opposed to concentric.

A church, either as a body or as a building.

e light of the sun, moon, or other luminous body, by the intervention of some other body, either between it and the eye, or between the luminous body and that illuminated by it. A lunar eclipse is caused by the moon passing through the earth's shadow; a solar eclipse, by the moon coming between the sun and the observer…

A process of bone formation in which ossification takes place in the perichondrium and either surrounds or gradually replaces the cartilage.