LEAN a.
Wanting fullness, richness, sufficiency, or productiveness; deficient in quality or contents; slender; scant; barren; bare; mean; -- used literally and figuratively; as, the lean harvest; a lean purse; a lean discourse; lean wages. "No lean wardrobe." Shak. Their lean and fiashy songs. Milton. What the land is, whether…
LIGHT a.
light step. (b) Fleet. -- Light of heart, gay, cheerful. -- Light oil (Chem.), the oily product, lighter than water, forming the chief part of the first distillate of coal tar, and consisting largely of benzene and toluene. -- Light sails (Naut.), all the sails above the topsails, with, also, the studding sails and…
LITERATURE n.
The collective body of literary productions, embracing the entire results of knowledge and fancy preserved in writing; also, the whole body of literary productions or writings upon a given subject, or in reference to a particular science or branch of knowledge, or of a given country or period; as, the literature of Bib…
MAGNESIUM n.
in dry air but tarnishing in moist air. It burns, forming (the oxide) magnesia, with the production of a blinding light (the so-called magnesium light) which is used in signaling, in pyrotechny, or in photography where a strong actinic illuminant is required. Its compounds occur abundantly, as in dolomite, talc, meers…
MEAN a. 2 definitions
mean time. -- Mean proportional (between two numbers) (Math.), the square root of their product. -- Mean sun, a fictitious sun supposed to move uniformly in the equator so as to be on the meridian each day at mean noon. -- Mean time, time as measured by an equable motion, as of a perfect clock, or as reckoned on th…