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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



500 words match “PHYSIC”

LABOR n.
Physical toil or bodily exertion, especially when fatiguing, irksome, or unavoidable, in distinction from sportive exercise; hard, muscular effort directed to some useful end, as agriculture, manufactures, and like; servile toil; exertion; work. God hath set Labor and rest, as day and night, to men Successive. Milton.…
LABORATORY n.
t; also, a place devoted to experiments in any branch of natural science; as, a chemical, physical, or biological laboratory. Hence, by extension, a place where something is prepared, or some operation is performed; as, the liver is the laboratory of the bile.
LAMARCKISM n.
stic of species and genera, are produced in animals and plants by the direct influence of physical environments, and esp., in the case of animals, by effort, or by use or disuse of certain organs.
LATENT a.
which remain undeveloped or dormant for a long time, but may at length grow. Latent heat (Physics), that quantity of heat which disappears or becomes concealed in a body while producing some change in it other than rise of temperature, as fusion, evaporation, or expansion, the quantity being constant for each particula…
LAW n. 3 definitions
In philosophy and physics: A rule of being, operation, or change, so certain and constant that it is conceived of as imposed by the will of God or by some controlling authority; as, the law of gravitation; the laws of motion; the law heredity; the laws of thought; the laws of cause and effect; law of self-preservation.…
LEACH n.
See Leech, a physician. [Obs.]
LEAD v.
To guide or conduct with the hand, or by means of some physical contact connection; as, a father leads a child; a jockey leads a horse with a halter; a dog leads a blind man. If a blind man lead a blind man, both fall down in the ditch. Wyclif (Matt. xv. 14.) They thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow o…
LEECH n.
physician or surgeon; a professor of the art of healing. [Written also leach.] [Archaic] Spenser. Leech, heal thyself. Wyclif (Luke iv. 23).
LEECHCRAFT n.
The art of healing; skill of a physician. [Archaic] Chaucer.
LENARD RAYS n.
rays are similar in all their known properties to cathode rays. So called from the German physicist Philipp Lenard (b. 1862), who first described them.
LEVEL a.
horizontal crosswise, and parallel with the rabbet of the keel lengthwise. Level surface (Physics), an equipotential surface at right angles at every point to the lines of force.
LICENTIATE n.
icense to exercise a profession; as, a licentiate in medicine or theology. The college of physicians, in July, 1687, published an edict, requiring all the fellows, candidates, and licentiates, to give gratuitous advice to the neighboring poor. Johnson.
LIFE n.
formance of their several and coöperative functions; the vital force, whether regarded as physical or spiritual.
LIGHT a.
Not burdensome; easy to be lifted, borne, or carried by physical strength; as, a light burden, or load. Ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matt. xi. 29. 30.
LINE n.
tratum to the horizon. -- Line of fire (Mil.), the direction of fire. -- Line of force (Physics), any line in a space in which forces are acting, so drawn that at every point of the line its tangent is the direction of the resultant of all the forces. It cuts at right angles every equipotential surface which it meets…
LOGGERHEADED a.
Dull; stupid. Shak. A rabble of loggerheaded physicians. Urquhart.
LOST a.
Ruined or destroyed, either physically or morally; past help or hope; as, a ship lost at sea; a woman lost to virtue; a lost soul.
MAGNETIC; MAGNETICAL a.
of iron filings between the poles of a powerful magnet. -- Magnetic elements. (a) (Chem. Physics) Those elements, as iron, nickel, cobalt, chromium, manganese, etc., which are capable or becoming magnetic. (b) (Physics) In respect to terrestrial magnetism, the declination, inclination, and intensity. (c) See under Ele…
MALEBRANCHISM n.
The philosophical system of Malebranche, an eminent French metaphysician. The fundamental doctrine of his system is that the mind can not have knowledge of anything external to itself except in its relation to God.
MALIC a.
c acid, but has no action on polarized light, and thus malic acid is a remarkable case of physical isomerism.
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