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s which keeps them from parting without considerable force; cohesiveness; the effect of attraction; -- as distinguished from brittleness, fragility, mobility, etc.

Giving the sensation of tension, stiffness, or contraction. A tensive pain from distension of the parts. Floyer.

r pertaining to tetanus; having the character of tetanus; as, a tetanic state; tetanic contraction. This condition of muscle, this fusion of a number of simple spasms into an apparently smooth, continuous effort, is known as tetanus, or tetanic contraction. Foster.

To throw, as a muscle, into a state of permanent contraction; to cause tetanus in. See Tetanus, n., 2.

That condition of a muscle in which it is in a state of continued vibratory contraction, as when stimulated by a series of induction shocks.

Influenced in its contraction by heat or cold; -- said of a muscle.

An affection apparently congenital, consisting in tonic contraction and stiffness of the voluntary muscles occurring after a period of muscular inaction.

A contraction of Through.

nar day, or the space of a little more than twenty- four hours. It is occasioned by the attraction of the sun and moon (the influence of the latter being three times that of the former), acting unequally on the waters in different parts of the earth, thus disturbing their equilibrium. A high tide upon one side of the e…

A common contraction of it is.

The state of healty tension or partial contraction of muscle fibers while at rest; tone; tonus.

Cylindrical with alternate swellings and contractions; having the surface covered with rounded prominences.

ce (Physics.), an instrument for estimating very minute forces, as electric or magnetic attractions and repulsions, by the torsion of a very slender wire or fiber having at its lower extremity a horizontal bar or needle, upon which the forces act. -- Torsion scale, a scale for weighing in which the fulcra of the lever…

A torsion balance used for measuring electric attraction or repulsion.

The sense by which pressure or traction exerted on the skin is recognized; the sense by which the properties of bodies are determined by contact; the tactile sense. See Tactile sense, under Tactile. The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine. Pope.

humanity. [R.] Souls purified by sorrow and self-denial, transhumanized to the divine abstraction of pure contemplation. Lowell.

A contraction of it was.

A short, spastic contraction of the fibers or muscles; a simple muscular contraction; as, convulsive twitches; a twitch in the side.

A painful spasmodic contraction of the vagina, often rendering copulation impossible.

f the veins of the neck in anæmia. -- Venous pulse (Physiol.), the pulse, or rhythmic contraction, sometimes seen in a vein, as in the neck, when there is an obstruction to the passage of blood from the auricles to the ventricles, or when there is an abnormal rigidity in the walls of the greater vessels. There is norm…