Search the Dictionary

acids, turning to brown several vegetable yellows, and changing reddened litmus to blue. Fixed alkalies, potash and soda. -- Vegetable alkalies. Same as Alkaloids. -- Volatile alkali, ammonia, so called in distinction from the fixed alkalies.

To put upon a fixed allowance (esp. of provisions and drink); to supply in a fixed and limited quantity; as, the captain was obliged to allowance his crew; our provisions were allowanced.

One of the tonsils. Almond oil, fixed oil expressed from sweet or bitter almonds. -- Oil of bitter almonds, a poisonous volatile oil obtained from bitter almonds by maceration and distillation; benzoic aldehyde. -- Imitation oil of bitter almonds, nitrobenzene. -- Almond tree (Bot.), the tree bearing the almond. --…

Not yet fixed legally, or settled past alteration; alterable; as, the dispositions of a will are ambulatory until the death of the testator.

To punish by a pecuniary penalty, the amount of which is not fixed by law, but left to the discretion of the court; as, the amerced the criminal in the sum on the hundred dollars.

penalty thus imposed. It differs from a fine,in that the latter is, or was originally, a fixed and certain sum prescribed by statue for an offense; but an amercement is arbitrary. Hence, the act or practice of affeering. [See Affeer.] Blackstone.

ist to impress the name of his mistress in the dust, or upon the damp earth, with letters fixed upon his shoe. Southey.

meet. Knight. (b) (Mach.) Same as Angle iron. -- Angle bead (Arch.), a bead worked on or fixed to the angle of any architectural work, esp. for protecting an angle of a wall. -- Angle brace, Angle tie (Carp.), a brace across an interior angle of a wooden frame, forming the hypothenuse and securing the two side pieces…

ngular distance. See Aperture, Distance. -- Angular motion, the motion of a body about a fixed point or fixed axis, as of a planet or pendulum. It is equal to the angle passed over at the point or axis by a line drawn to the body. -- Angular point, the point at which the sides of the angle meet; the vertex. -- Angul…

The first or conditional part of a hypothetical proposition; as, If the earth is fixed, the sun must move.

An ornament fixed upon a frieze.

Fixed and strong desire; esp. natural desire; a craving; an eager appetite. They had a strong appetency for reading. Merivale.

Depending on will or discretion; not governed by any fixed rules; as, an arbitrary decision; an arbitrary punishment. It was wholly arbitrary in them to do so. Jer. Taylor. Rank pretends to fix the value of every one, and is the most arbitrary of all things. Landor.

A fixed star of the first magnitude in the constellation Boötes.

t a chimney or wall, to throw off the rain. Gwilt. -- Arris gutter, a gutter of a V form fixed to the eaves of a building. Gwilt.

an indictment does in a common criminal case. -- Articles of war, rules and regulations, fixed by law, for the better government of the army. -- In the article of death Etym: [L. in articulo mortis], at the moment of death; in the dying struggle. -- Lords of the articles (Scot. Hist.), a standing committee of the Sc…

Anything fixed or reduced to a certainty in point of time, number, quantity, quality, weight, measure, etc.; as, rent of assize. Glanvill. Spelman. Cowell. Blackstone. Tomlins. Burrill.

Having little or no tendency to take a fixed or definite position or direction: thus, a suspended magnetic needle, when rendered astatic, loses its polarity, or tendency to point in a given direction. Astatic pair (Magnetism), a pair of magnetic needles so mounted as to be nearly or quite astatic, as in some galvanomet…

The science or knowledge of the stars, esp. the fixed stars. Bouvier.

A vowel prefixed, or a lengthening of the initial vowel, to mark past time, as in Greek and Sanskrit verbs.