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To measure by the span of the hand with the fingers extended, or with the fingers encompassing the object; as, to span a space or distance; to span a cylinder. My right hand hath spanned the heavens. Isa. xiviii. 13.

A kind of bandage passing, by successive turns and crosses, from an extremity to the trunk; -- so called from its resemblance to a spike of a barley.

A series of steps, as for passing from one story of a house to another; -- commonly used in the plural; but originally used in the singular only. "I a winding stair found." Chaucer's Dream. Below stairs, in the basement or lower part of a house, where the servants are. -- Flight of stairs, the stairs which make the wh…

A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff. Let us chant a passing stave In honor of that hero brave. Wordsworth.

phere, and the plane upon which the projection is made is at right andles to the diameter passing through the center of projection.

A step, or set of steps, for ascending and descending, in passing a fence or wall. There comes my master . . . over the stile, this way. Shak. Over this stile in the way to Doubting Castle. Bunyan.

To disturb the relative position of the particles of, as of a liquid, by passing something through it; to agitate; as, to stir a pudding with a spoon. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred. Shak.

diaphragm used in optical instruments to cut off the marginal portions of a beam of light passing through lenses.

the red stopper. See Eugenia. C. S. Sargent. Ring stopper (Naut.), a short rope or chain passing through the anchor ring, to secure the anchor to the cathead. -- Stopper bolt (Naut.), a large ringbolt in a ship's deck, to which the deck stoppers are hooked.

Right, in a mathematical sense; passing from one point to another by the nearest course; direct; not deviating or crooked; as, a straight line or course; a straight piece of timber. And the crooked shall be made straight. Isa. xl. 4. There are many several sorts of crooked lines, but there is only one which is straight…

A piece of rope or metal passing around a block and used for fastening it to anything.

y of] Amasa from the street unto the field. Coverdale. At home or through the high street passing. Milton.

l band or line; a striation; as, the striæ, or groovings, produced on a rock by a glacier passing over it; the striæ on the surface of a shell; a stria of nervous matter in the brain.

A youth in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. Inquire thou whose son the stripling is. 1 Sam. xvii. 56.

r old horseshoe nails, -- used in making gun barrels. -- Stub mortise (Carp.), a mortise passing only partly through the timber in which it is formed. -- Stub nail, an old horseshoe nail; a nail broken off; also, a short, thick nail. -- Stub short, or Stub shot (Lumber Manuf.), the part of the end of a sawn log or p…

An instrument for examining wounds and fistulas, and for passing setons, and the like; a probe, -- called also specillum.

The principal river of the lower world, which had to be crossed in passing to the regions of the dead.

erected; being the common section of the face of the dial and a plane perpendicular to it passing through the style. [Written also substile.] Hutton.

Eminent in a superior degree; surpassing others in excellence; as, a supereminent divine; the supereminent glory of Christ. -- Su`per*em"i*nent*ly, adv.

Very fine, or most fine; being of surpassing fineness; of extra nice or fine quality; as, superfine cloth.