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n, by rapidly twirling a wooden pin in a wooden socket; -- used by the Hindoos during all historic time, and by many savage peoples. -- Fire eater. (a) A juggler who pretends to eat fire. (b) A quarrelsome person who seeks affrays; a hotspur. [Colloq.] -- Fire engine, a portable forcing pump, usually on wheels, for th…

of a red color, displayed as a signal of danger or token of defiance; the emblem of anarchists. -- To dip, the flag, to mlower it and quickly restore it to its place; -- done as a mark of respect. -- To hang out the white flag, to ask truce or quarter, or, in some cases, to manifest a friendly design by exhibiting a…

umerous little flowers which compose the head or anthodium in such flowers as the daisy, thistle, and dandelion. Gray.

A light shower or snowfall accompanied with wind. Like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind. Longfellow.

To play, whistle, or sing with a clear, soft note, like that of a flute. Knaves are men, That lute and flute fantastic tenderness. Tennyson. The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee. Emerson.

A name given to the series of sandstones and schists overlying the true nummulitic formation in the Alps, and included in the Eocene Tertiary.

A state of mental confusion. Fog alarm, Fog bell, Fog horn, etc., a bell, horn, whistle or other contrivance that sounds an alarm, often automatically, near places of danger where visible signals would be hidden in thick weather. -- Fog bank, a mass of fog resting upon the sea, and resembling distant land. -- Fog rin…

Laminated, but restricted to the variety of laminated structure found in crystalline schist, as mica schist, etc.; schistose.

ly of the people to consider and order matters of the commonwealth; also, a local court. [Hist.] To which folkmote they all with one consent Agreed to travel. Spenser.

ch of; to forbid or prohibit. See Forfend. God forefend it should ever be recorded in our history. Landor. It would be a far better work . . . to forefend the cruelty. I. Taylor.

es as a fraud, although perhaps not intended to be such. Mozley & W. -- Pious fraud (Ch. Hist.), a fraud contrived and executed to benefit the church or accomplish some good end, upon the theory that the end justified the means. -- Statute of frauds (Law), an English statute (1676), the principle of which is incorpor…

oapwort (Saponaria officinalis), formerly used to remove stains from cloth. -- Fuller's thistle or weed (Bot.), the teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) whose burs are used by fullers in dressing cloth. See Teasel.

A heterogenous group of fungi of which the complete life history is not known. Some undoubtedly represent the conidium stages of various Ascomycetes. The group is divided into the orders Sphæropsidales, Melanconiales, and Moniliales.

Pompous; ridiculously tumid; inflated; bombastic; as, fustian history. Walpole.

; also, the number of points necessary to be scored in order to win a game; as, in short whist five points are game.

A rose just gathered from the stalk. Dryden. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles Matt. vii. 16. Gather us from among the heathen. Ps. cvi. 47.

To investigate, or relate the history of, descents.

An account or history of the descent of a person or family from an ancestor; enumeration of ancestors and their children in the natural order of succession; a pedigree.

book of the Old Testament; -- so called by the Greek translators, from its containing the history of the creation of the world and of the human race.

mined by, the genesis of anything, or its natural mode of production or development. This historical, genetical method of viewing prior systems of philosophy. Hare.