Search the Dictionary

r a solid head with a face cut into a number of rows of such points; -- used for dressing stone.

by merchant strangers; -- so called because paid to the king's butler for the king. Blackstone.

The mass of stone or solid work at the end of a bridge, by which the extreme arches are sustained, or by which the end of a bridge without arches is supported. Butment cheek (Carp.), the part of a mortised timber surrounding the mortise, and against which the shoulders of the tenon bear. Knight.

side or incidental blow; an accidental blow. With their by-blows they did split the very stones in pieces. Bunyan.

The small and nearly cubical stone building, toward which all Mohammedans must pray. [Written also kaaba.]

Fastened with, or attached to, a cable or rope. "The cabled stone." Dyer.

A stone of convex form, highly polished, but not faceted; also, the style of cutting itself. Such stones are said to be cut en cabochon.

A place of confinement for malefactors Shak. Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage. Lovelace.

A rounded or conical heap of stones erected by early inhabitants of the British Isles, apparently as a sepulchral monument. Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn. Campbell.

A foul vein, like chalcedony, in some precious stones.

er, as when carbonic and acid is expelled from carbonate of calcium in the burning of limestone in order to make lime.

action of heat; to expel volatile matter from by means of heat, as carbonic acid from limestone, and thus (usually) to produce disintegration; as to, calcine bones.

ral in its crystallization, and thus distinguished from aragonite. It includes common limestone, chalk, and marble. Called also calc-spar and calcareous spar.

Eroding, or eating into, limestone.

Of the nature of a calculus; like stone; gritty; as, a calculous concretion. Sir T. Browne.

d by the North American Indians for smoking tobacco. The bowl is usually made of soft red stone, and the tube is a long reed often ornamented with feathers. Smoked the calumet, the Peace pipe, As a signal to the nations. Lowgfellow.

Flint or pebble stone, used in building walls, etc. Haliwell.

Of a pale yellowish color; as, Canary stone. Canary grass, a grass of the genus Phalaris (P. Canariensis), producing the seed used as food for canary birds. -- Canary stone (Min.), a yellow species of carnelian, named from its resemblance in color to the plumage of the canary bird. -- Canary wood, the beautiful wood…

; the phrase is now used figuratively for any manner of obliterating or defacing it. Blackstone.

White. [Obs.] The box receives all black; but poured from thence, The stones came candid forth, the hue of innocence. Dryden.