Search the Dictionary

y rectified spirit (called also ethyl alcohol); the spirituous or intoxicating element of fermented or distilled liquors, or more loosely a liquid containing it in considerable quantity. It is extracted by simple distillation from various vegetable juices and infusions of a saccharine nature, which have undergone vinou…

An intoxicating liquor made from an infusion of malt by fermentation and the addition of a bitter, usually hops.

An eager, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling a way ambition: By that sin fell the angels. Shak. The pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres. Burke.

parent, colorless liquid, having a peculiar odor. It is the hydroxide of amyl. -- Amylic fermentation (Chem.), a process of fermentation in starch or sugar in which amylic alcohol is produced. Gregory.

Effecting the conversion of starch into soluble dextrin and sugar; as, an amylolytic ferment. Foster.

The first year's profits of a spiritual preferment, anciently paid by the clergy to the pope; first fruits. In England, they now form a fund for the augmentation of poor livings.

Preventing fermentation.

Preventing fermentation or decomposition. -- n.

st Indies and the Indian islands for all ardent spirits. Arrack is often distilled from a fermented mixture of rice, molasses, and palm wine of the cocoanut tree or the date palm, etc.

Unleavened; unfermented. "Azymous bread." Dunglison.

s the infusion of malt and hops from the copper. -- Wash back, a vat in which distillers ferment the wort to form wash. -- Water back, a cistern to hold a supply of water; esp. a small cistern at the back of a stove, or a group of pipes set in the fire box of a stove or furnace, through which water circulates and is…

h marvelous rapidity, both by fission and by spores. Certain species are active agents in fermentation, while others appear to be the cause of certain infectious diseases. See Bacillus.

e for keeping tropical plants, having a bed of tanner's bark (called a bark bed) or other fermentable matter which produces a moist heat.

Foam rising upon beer, or other malt liquors, when fermenting, and used as leaven in making bread and in brewing; yeast. Shak.

Full of barm or froth; in a ferment. "Barmy beer." Dryden.

A fermented liquor made from any malted grain, but commonly from barley malt, with hops or some other substance to impart a bitter flavor.

An ecclesiastical living and church preferment, as in the Church of England; a church endowed with a revenue for the maintenance of divine service. See Advowson.

mely adhesive viscid substance, usually made of the middle bark of the holly, by boiling, fermenting, and cleansing it. When a twig is smeared with this substance it will hold small birds which may light upon it. Hence: Anything which insnares. Not birdlime or Idean pitch produce A more tenacious mass of clammy juice.…

An acidulated fermented drink of the Arabs and Egyptians, made from millet seed and various astringent substances; also, an intoxicating beverage made from hemp seed, darnel meal, and water. [Written also bosa, bozah, bouza.]

A liquor made of ale and honey fermented, with spices, etc. [Obs.] B. Jonson.