Search the Dictionary

Nonessential; not necessary belonging; incidental; as, are accidental to a play. Accidental chords (Mus.), those which contain one or more tones foreign to their proper harmony. -- Accidental colors (Opt.), colors depending on the hypersensibility of the retina of the eye for complementary colors. They are purely subj…

uite over; as, a bridge laid across a river. Dryden. To come across, to come upon or meet incidentally. Freeman. -- To go across the country, to go by a direct course across a region without following the roads.

A remarkable occurrence; a striking event; a stirring incident; as, the adventures of one's life. Bacon.

To be conformable; to resemble; to coincide; to correspond; as, the picture does not agree with the original; the two scales agree exactly.

A particular or detached incident or fact of an interesting nature; a biographical incident or fragment; a single passage of private life.

eme points of an object to the center of the eye. -- For Angles of commutation, draught, incidence, reflection, refraction, position, repose, fraction, see Commutation, Draught, Incidence, Reflection, Refraction, etc.

Anything attached to another as incidental or subordinate to it.

legal acceptation, something belonging to another thing as principal, and which passes as incident to it, as a right of way, or other easement to land; a right of common to pasture, an outhouse, barn, garden, or orchard, to a house or messuage. In a strict legal sense, land can never pass as an appurtenance to land. To…

Annexed or pertaining to some more important thing; accessory; incident; as, a right of way appurtenant to land or buildings. Blackstone. Common appurtenatn. (Law) See under Common, n.

the way; to the purpose; suitably to the place or subject; -- a word used to introduce an incidental observation, suited to the occasion, though not strictly belonging to the narration.

ar to its surfaces. -- Axis of a telescope or microscope, the straight line with which coincide the axes of the several lenses which compose it. -- Axes of coördinates in a plane, to straight lines intersecting each other, to which points are referred for the purpose of determining their relative position: they are e…

eably acid fruit resembling a cherry. -- Barbados leg (Med.), a species of elephantiasis incident to hot climates. -- Barbados nuts, the seeds of the Jatropha curcas, a plant growing in South America and elsewhere. The seeds and their acrid oil are used in medicine as a purgative. See Physic nut.

of linen about 1 ft. 8 in. wide by 213 ft. long, covered with embroidery representing the incidents of William the Conqueror's expedition to England, preserved in the town museum of Bayeux in Normandy. It is probably of the 11th century, and is attributed by tradition to Matilda, the Conqueror's wife.…

nes, and have their teeth cut at right angles to the surfaces of two cones whose apices coincide with the point where the axes of the wheels would meet.

The chemistry of living organisms; the chemistry of the processes incidental to, and characteristic of, life.

A distemper incident to cattle, in which their livers are affected. Crabb.

path; aside; -- used in composition, giving the meaning of something aside, secondary, or incidental, or collateral matter, a thing private or avoiding notice; as, by-line, by-place, by-play, by-street. It was formerly more freely used in composition than it is now; as, by-business, by-concernment, by- design, by-inter…

A side or incidental blow; an accidental blow. With their by-blows they did split the very stones in pieces. Bunyan.

An incidental or casual speech, not directly relating to the point. "To quote by-speeches." Hooker.

A disease incident to trees, causing the bark to rot and fall off.