POINTED a.
Characterized by sharpness, directness, or pithiness of expression; terse; epigrammatic; especially, directed to a particular person or thing. His moral pleases, not his pointed wit. Pope. Pointed arch (Arch.), an arch with a pointed crown. -- Pointed style (Arch.), a name given to that style of architecture in which…
POSITIVE a.
h this characteristic is reversed, as Iceland spar, tourmaline, etc. -- Positive degree (Gram.), that state of an adjective or adverb which denotes simple quality, without comparison or relation to increase or diminution; as, wise, noble. -- Positive electricity (Elec), the kind of electricity which is developed when…
POTENTIAL a.
ry. -- Potential energy. (Mech.) See the Note under Energy. -- Potential mood, or mode (Gram.), that form of the verb which is used to express possibility, liberty, power, will, obligation, or necessity, by the use of may, can, must, might, could, would, or should; as, I may go; he can write.
PRIMITIVE a.
Original; primary; radical; not derived; as, primitive verb in grammar. Primitive axes of coördinate (Geom.), that system of axes to which the points of a magnitude are first referred, with reference to a second set or system, to which they are afterward referred. -- Primitive chord (Mus.), that chord, the lowest note…
PROPER a.
Bot.), a nectary separate from the petals and other parts of the flower. -- Proper noun (Gram.), a name belonging to an individual, by which it is distinguished from others of the same class; -- opposed to Ant: common noun; as, John, Boston, America. -- Proper perianth or involucre (Bot.), that which incloses only a…
RECIPROCAL a.
ity. -- Reciprocal figures (Geom.), two figures of the same kind (as triangles, parallelograms, prisms, etc.), so related that two sides of the one form the extremes of a proportion of which the means are the two corresponding sides of the other; in general, two figures so related that the first corresponds in some sp…