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g the banks of streams in the United States, and is also called ironwood. The English hornbeam is C. Betulus. The American is called also blue beech and water beech. Hop hornbeam. (Bot.) See under Hop.

Shining in. South.

A ray of light from the moon.

See Quicken tree.

The lever or beam of a balance; the lever of a platform scale, to which the poise for weighing is applied.

The part of the plow to which the share is attached.

A beam or ray of the sun. "Evening sunbeams." Keble. Thither came Uriel, gliding through the even On a sunbeam. Milton.

A beam acting as a tie, as at the bottom of a pair of principal rafters, to prevent them from thrusting out the wall. See Illust. of Timbers, under Roof. Gwilt.

A kind of large steelyard for weighing merchandise; -- also called weighmaster's beam.

The common beam tree of England (Pyrus Aria); -- so called from the white, woolly under surface of the leaves.

Behind; toward the stern from; as, abaft the wheelhouse. Abaft the beam. See under Beam.

Side by side; also, opposite; over against; on a line with the vessel's beam; -- with of.

The corner or quoin of a wall, cross-beam, or rafter. [Obs.] Gwilt.

An upright beam. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

The short upright pieces between the floor beams and rafters in garrets. See Ashlar, 2.

A bar or beam of wood or iron, connecting the opposite wheels of a carriage, on the ends of which the wheels revolve.

in dancing. See Balance, v. i., S. Balance electrometer, a kind of balance, 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 o…

A great beam, rafter, or timber; esp., the tie-beam of a house. The loft above was called "the balks." Tubs hanging in the balks. Chaucer.

), the common American swallow (Hirundo horreorum), which attaches its nest of mud to the beams and rafters of barns.

A beam, shod or armed at the end with a metal head or point, and projecting from the prow of an ancient galley, in order to pierce the vessel of an enemy; a beakhead.