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elonging to, and distinguishing, an individual; characteristic susceptibility; idiocrasy; eccentricity. The individual mind . . . takes its tone from the idiosyncrasies of the body. I. Taylor.

A personal frailty or failing; foible; eccentricity; a weakness or defect. Will you be cured of your infirmity Shak. A friend should bear his friend's infirmities. Shak. The house has also its infirmities. Evelyn.

gular proceeding; irregular motion; irregular conduct, etc. Cf. Regular. Mazes intricate, Eccentric, intervolved, yet regular Then most when most irregular they seem. Milton. Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glendower. Shak. A flowery meadow through which a clear stream murmured…

Queer; eccentric; crotchety. [Colloq. U.S.]

y (Steam Engine), the slotted bar, or connecting piece, to the opposite ends of which the eccentric rods are jointed, and by means of which the movement of the valve is varied, in a link motion.

A valve gear, consisting of two eccentrics with their rods, giving motion to a slide valve by an adjustable connecting bar, called the link, in such a way that the motion of the engine can be reversed, or the cut-off varied, at will; -- used very generally in locomotives and marine engines.

Singularity; strangeness; eccentricity; irregularity; uncouthness; as, the oddness of dress or shape; the oddness of an event. Young.

lution of a heavenly body; an orbit. The schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics, and epicycles, and such engines of orbs. Bacon. You seem to me as Dian in her orb. Shak. In orbs Of circuit inexpressible they stood, Orb within orb. Milton.

A person of marked eccentricity. [Colloq.]

for a person considered to have an excess of some undesirable quality; esp. difficult or eccentric person. Piece of ass vulgar term for a woman, considered as a partner in sexual intercourse

A celestial body which revolves about the sun in an orbit of a moderate degree of eccentricity. It is distinguished from a comet by the absence of a coma, and by having a less eccentric orbit. See Solar system.

The investing portion, or spherical envelope, surrounding the eccentric germinal spot of the germinal vesicle.

uality or value. Faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. Rom. iv. 9. Without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime. Hawthorne.

divided by the number of measurements, gives the angle, freed in a measure from errors of eccentricity and graduation. -- Repeating watch. See Repeater (a)

Of or pertaining to the rubric or rubrics. "Rubrical eccentricities." C. Kingsley.

In ancient astronomy, one of the concentric and eccentric revolving spherical transparent shells in which the stars, sun, planets, and moon were supposed to be set, and by which they were carried, in such a manner as to produce their apparent motions.

is. Tappet motion, a valve motion worked by tappets from a reciprocating part, without an eccentric or cam, -- used in steam pumps, etc.

The extreme movement given to a sliding or vibrating reciprocating piece by a cam, crank, eccentric, or the like; travel; stroke; as, the throw of a slide valve. Also, frequently, the length of the radius of a crank, or the eccentricity of an eccentric; as, the throw of the crank of a steam engine is equal to half the…

An eccentric ragtime dance, danced with the feet well apart and with a characteristic rise on the ball of the foot, followed by a drop upon the heel. The original form, owning to the positions assumed by the dancers, is offensively suggestive. Similar dances are the bunny hug and grizzly bear, so called in allusion to…

rous; clumsy; awkward; uncouth; as, an ungainly strut in walking. His ungainly figure and eccentric manners. Macaulay.