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Natural tendency; affinity; attraction; -- used of inanimate objects.

In an arch manner; with attractive slyness or roguishness; slyly; waggishly. Archly the maiden smiled. Longfellow.

The substance from which attraction spheres develop in mitotic cell division, and of which they consist.

Striking; attracting attention; impressive. This most solemn and arresting occurrence. J. H. Newman.

Degree of atomic attraction; equivalence; valence; also (a later use) the number of atoms in an elementary molecule. See Valence.

To win the heart of; to connect by ties of love or self-interest; to attract; to fasten or bind by moral influence; -- with to; as, attached to a friend; attaching others to us by wealth or flattery. Incapable of attaching a sensible man. Miss Austen. God . . . by various ties attaches man to man. Cowper.…

Attracting; drawing; attractive.

lance, with a poised beam, which indicates, by weights suspended from one arm, the mutual attraction of oppositely electrified surfaces. Knight. -- Balance fish. (Zoöl) See Hammerhead. -- Balance knife, a carving or table knife the handle of which overbalances the blade, and so keeps it from contact with the table.…

A young lady of superior beauty and attractions; a handsome lady, or one who attracts notice in society; a fair lady.

To confine, restrain, or hold by physical force or influence of any kind; as, attraction binds the planets to the sun; frost binds the earth, or the streams. He bindeth the floods from overflowing. Job xxviii. 11. Whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years. Luke xiii. 16.

lazing torches. Sir W. Scott. Blazing star. (a) A comet. [Obs.] (b) A brilliant center of attraction. (c) (Bot.) A name given to several plants; as, to Chamælirium luteum of the Lily family; Liatris squarrosa; and Aletris farinosa, called also colicroot and star grass.

hered fruits or leaves, as on grapes, plums, etc. Hence: Anything giving an appearance of attractive freshness; a flush; a glow. A new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. Thackeray.

d bo tree of the Buddhists (Ficus religiosa), which is planted close to every temple, and attracts almost as much veneration as the status of the god himself. . . . It differs from the banyan (Ficus Indica) by sending down no roots from its branches. Tennent.

A unit of chemical attraction; as, oxygen has two bonds of affinity. It is often represented in graphic formulæ by a short line or dash. See Diagram of Benzene nucleus, and Valence. Arbitration bond. See under Arbitration. -- Bond crediter (Law), a creditor whose debt is secured by a bond. Blackstone. -- Bond debt (L…

Handsome; beautiful; pretty; attractively lively and graceful. Till bonny Susan sped across the plain. Gay. Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr. Burns.

ith Gen. Georges Boulanger (d. 1891), whose militarism and advocacy of revenge on Germany attracted to him a miscellaneous party of monarchists and Republican malcontents. -- Bou*lan"gist (#), n.

A rustic cottage or abode; poetically, an attractive abode or retreat. Shenstone. B. Johnson.

al credit of; to make bankrupt; to ruin. With arts like these rich Matho, when he speaks, Attracts all fees, and little lawyers breaks. Dryden.

Having qualities that render conspicuous or attractive, or that affect the mind as light does the eye; resplendent with charms; as, bright beauty. Bright as an angel new-dropped from the sky. Parnell.

is in contact with a solid (as in a capillary tube), is elevated or depressed; capillary attraction.