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picy berry of a species of pepper (Piper Cubeba; in med., Cubeba officinalis), native in Java and Borneo, but now cultivated in various tropical countries. The dried unripe fruit is much used in medicine as a stimulant and purgative.

Isometric or monometric; as, cubic cleavage. See Crystallization. Cubic equation, an equation in which the highest power of the unknown quantity is a cube. -- Cubic foot, a volume equivalent to a cubical solid which measures a foot in each of its dimensions. -- Cubic number, a number produced by multiplying a number…

r study; to impart culture to; to civilize; to refine. To cultivate the wild, licentious savage. Addison. The mind of man hath need to be prepared for piety and virtue; it must be cultivated to the end. Tillotson.

ng an object, to obstruct or occupy uselessly; to embarrass; to trouble. Why asks he what avails him not in fight, And would but cumber and retard his flight Dryden. Martha was cumbered about much serving. Luke x. 40. Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground Luke xiii. 7. The multiplying variety of arguments, especiall…

Eager or inordinate desire, especially for wealth; greed of gain; avarice; covetousness. With the feelings of political distrust were mingled those of cupidity and envy, as the Spaniard saw the fairest provinces of the south still in the hands of the accursed race of Ishmael. Prescott.

An avaricious, grasping fellow; a miser; a niggard; a churl. A gray-headed curmudgeon of a negro. W. Irving.

A cellar or excavation used for refuge from a cyclone, or tornado. [Middle U. S.]

nous and containing morbid matter, which is accidentally developed in one of the natural cavaties or in the substance of an organ.

An annual tax formerly laid on the English nation to buy off the ravages of Danish invaders, or to maintain forces to oppose them. It afterward became a permanent tax, raised by an assessment, at first of one shilling, afterward of two shillings, upon every hide of land throughout the realm. Wharton's Law Dict. Tomlins…

To reduce from civilization to a savage state. [R.] Blackwood's Mag.

To cause to grow less; to diminish gradually; as, extravagance decreases one's means. That might decrease their present store. Prior.

y of degeneration, or hereditary degradation of type; as, the degenerationists hold that savagery is the result of degeneration from a superior state.

tion of energy (Physics), the transformation of energy into some form in which it is less available for doing work.

A soldier of light cavalry of the 16th century, who carried a demilance.

The laying bare of rocks by the washing away of the overlying earth, etc.; or the excavation and removal of them by the action of running water.

by the roots; to extirpate. [R.] While that the colter rusts That should deracinate such savagery. Shak.

itting of one's duties willfully and without right; esp., an absconding from military or naval service. Such a resignation would have seemed to his superior a desertion or a reproach. Bancroft.

To lay waste; to ruin; to ravage; as, a fire desolates a city. Constructed in the very heart of a desolating war. Sparks.

To lay waste; to ravage; to desolate. Whole countries . . . were devastated. Macaulay.

printer's devil or the sheriff's officer." Macaulay. -- Tasmanian devil (Zoöl.), a very savage carnivorous marsupial of Tasmania (Dasyurus, or Diabolus, ursinus). -- To play devil with, to molest extremely; to ruin. [Low]