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r in other respects, differ in this, viz., that they do or do not produce right-handed or left-handed circular polarization of light. -- Optically positive, Optically negative. See under Refraction.

he power of choosing; the right of choice or election; an alternative. There is an option left to the United States of America, whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptible and miserable, as a nation. Washington.

Involving an option; depending on the exercise of an option; left to one's discretion or choice; not compulsory; as, optional studies; it is optional with you to go or stay. -- n.

A morsel left at a meal; a fragment; refuse; -- commonly used in the plural. Milton. Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave. Shak.

Left, as opposed to right. [Obs.] A distaff in her other hand she had. Spenser.

A plant (Ricinus communis) with ornamental peltate and palmately cleft foliage, growing as a woody perennial in the tropics, and cultivated as an herbaceous annual in temperate regions; -- called also castor-oil plant. [Sometimes corrupted into palmcrist.]

861, had a white palmetto in the center of a blue field and a white crescent in the upper left-hand corner.

Cleft so that the divisions reach nearly, but not quite, to the midrib, or the base of the blade; -- said of a leaf, and used chiefly in composition; as, three-parted, five-parted, etc. Gray.

Palmate, with the lateral lobes cleft into two or more segments; -- said of a leaf. -- Ped"ate*ly, adv.

Cleft in a pedate manner, but having the lobes distinctly connected at the base; -- said of a leaf.

Divided or cleft into five parts.

A buttress on the left-hand wall of a fives court as the game is played at Eton College, England.

A stated and recurring interval of time; more generally, an interval of time specified or left indefinite; a certain series of years, months, days, or the like; a time; a cycle; an age; an epoch; as, the period of the Roman republic. How by art to make plants more lasting than their ordinary period. Bacon.…

doth neither command nor forbid . . . he permitteth with approbation either to be done or left undone. Hooker.

They are worn by Jews on the head and left arm, on week-day mornings, during the time of prayer. Schaff-Herzog Encyc.

bull's eye, or center, of a target; hence, the center. [Obs.] "The very pin of his heart cleft." Shak.

The indentation or mark left by a pustule, as in smallpox.

The opening or slit left in a petticoat or skirt for convenience in putting it on; -- called also placket hole.

sping the small of the stock, and the barrel sloping upward and crossing the point of the left shoulder; as, to port arms. Began to hem him round with ported spears. Milton. Port arms, a position in the manual of arms, executed as above.

ffirmative quantity, or one affected by the sign plus [+]. -- Positive rotation (Mech.), left-handed rotation. -- Positive sign (Math.), the sign [+] denoting plus, or more, or addition.