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The exterior slope or wall of the ditch; -- sometimes, the whole covered way, beyond the ditch, with its parapet and glacis; as, the enemy have lodged themselves on the counterscarp.

The hard external coat or covering of anything; the hard exterior surface or outer shell; an incrustation; as, a crust of snow. I have known the statute of an emperor quite hid under a crust of dross. Addison. Below this icy crust of conformity, the waters of infidelity lay dark and deep as ever. Prescott.…

Having a hard exterior, or a short, rough manner, though kind at heart; snappish; peevish; surly. Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news Shak.

To cover with a specious or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal. So smooth he daubed his vice with show of virtue. Shak.

To divest of the bark, husk, or exterior coating; to husk; to peel; to hull. "Great barley dried and decorticated." Arbuthnot.

The act of defacing, or the condition of being defaced; injury to the surface or exterior; obliteration.

The act of defilading a fortress, or of raising the exterior works in order to protect the interior. See Defilade.

A dress or exterior put on for purposes of concealment or of deception; as, persons doing unlawful acts in disguise are subject to heavy penalties. There is no passion steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises, than pride. Addison.

A sham package in a shop, or one which does not contain what its exterior indicates.

Any parasite which lives on the exterior of animals; -- opposed to endoparasite. -- Ec`to*par`a*sit"ic, a.

The shell or exterior covering of an egg. Also used figuratively for anything resembling an eggshell.

ornament; decoration; as, pictorial embellishments. The graces and embellishments of the exterior man. I. Taylor.

A continuous and, usually, structureless layer which covers more or less of the exterior of many corals.

Living upon the exterior of another animal; ectozoic; -- said of external parasites.

the artificial group of invertebrates of various kinds, which live parasitically upon the exterior of other animals; an ectozoön. Among them are the lice, ticks, many acari, the lerneans, or fish lice, and other crustaceans.

Imperfect fetation in some organ exterior to the uterus; extra- uterine fetation. Hoblyn.

Growing by addition to the exterior.

Outward form or part; exterior. [R.]

Outward; exterior; relating to the outside, as of a body; being without; acting from without; -- opposed to internal; as, the external form or surface of a body. Of all external things, . . . She [Fancy] forms imaginations, aery shapes. Milton.

State of being external; exteriority; (Metaph.)