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To be obliged; to be necessitated; -- expressing either physical or moral necessity; as, a man must eat for nourishment; we must submit to the laws.

One who does not speak, whether from physical inability, unwillingness, or other cause. Specifically:

cuding the sciences of botany, zoölogy, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, chemistry, and physics. In recent usage the term is often restricted to the sciences of botany and zoölogy collectively, and sometimes to the science of zoology alone. -- Natural law, that instinctive sense of justice and of right and wrong, wh…

Physical constitution or existence; the vital powers; the natural life. "My days of nature." Shak. Oppressed nature sleeps. Shak.

t place, which are charged with carbonic acid, and the use of a graduated course of rest, physical exercises, massage, etc.; hence, any similar treatment using waters artificially charged with the essential ingredients of the natural mineral waters of Bad Nauheim. Hence, Nauheim bath, etc.

bula, which, gradually cooling and contracting, threw off, in obedience to mechanical and physical laws, succesive rings of matter, from which subsequently, by the same laws, were produced the several planets, satellites, and other bodies of the system. The phrase may indicate any hypothesis according to which the star…

h makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality. So spake the fiend, and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds. Milton.

Physical force or steadiness; muscular power and control; constitutional vigor. he led me on to mightiest deeds, Above the nerve of mortal arm. Milton.

hey are awarded yearly for what is regarded as the most important work during the year in physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, idealistic literature, and service in the interest of peace. The prizes, averaging $40,000 each, were first awarded in 1901.

That which has no value; a cipher; zero. Bacon. Null method (Physics.), a zero method. See under Zero.

To constrain by physical, moral, or legal force; to put under obligation to do or forbear something. The obliging power of the law is neither founded in, nor to be measured by, the rewards and punishments annexed to it. South. Religion obliges men to the practice of those virtues which conduce to the preservation of ou…

ands in the way, or opposes; anything that hinders progress; a hindrance; an obstruction, physical or moral. If all obstacles were cut away. And that my path were even to the crown. Shak.

of the edges of a natural opening; imperforation. Dunglison. Occlusion of gases (Chem. & Physics), the phenomenon of absorbing gases, as exhibited by platinum, palladium, iron, or charcoal; thus, palladium absorbs, or occludes, nearly a thousand times its own volume of hydrogen, and in this case a chemical compound se…

That department of the science of metaphysics which investigates and explains the nature and essential properties and relations of all beings, as such, or the principles and causes of being.

To perform a work or labor; to exert power or strengh, physical or mechanical; to act.

The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral. The pain and sickness caused by manna are the effects of its operation on the stomach. Locke. Speculative painting, without the assistance of manual operation, can never attain to perfection. Dryden.

Having the power of acting; hence, exerting force, physical or moral; active in the production of effects; as, an operative motive. It holds in all operative principles. South.

To resist or antagonize by physical means, or by arguments, etc.; to contend against; to confront; to resist; to withstand; as, to oppose the king in battle; to oppose a bill in Congress.

By optics or sight; with reference to optics. Optically active, Optically inactive (Chem. Physics), terms used of certain metameric substances which, while identical with each other in other respects, differ in this, viz., that they do or do not produce right-handed or left-handed circular polarization of light. -- Op…

That branch of physical science which treats of the nature and properties of light, the laws of its modification by opaque and transparent bodies, and the phenomena of vision.