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Observing the proprieties of the sex; not unwomanly in act or bearing; free from undue familiarity, indecency, or lewdness; decent in speech and demeanor; -- said of a woman. Mrs. Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife. Shak. The blushing beauties of a modest maid. Dryden.

An instrument for observing the clouds and their velocity.

The act of noting, remarking, or observing; observation by the senses or intellect; cognizance; note. How ready is envy to mingle with the notices we take of other persons ! I. Watts.

The act or practice of observing or noticing with attention; a heeding or keeping with care; performance; -- usually with a sense of strictness and fidelity; as, the observance of the Sabbath is general; the strict observance of duties. It is a custom More honored in the breach than the observance. Shak.…

The act or the faculty of observing or taking notice; the act of seeing, or of fixing the mind upon, anything. My observation, which very seldom lies. Shak.

Observing; watchful.

make a remark; to comment; -- generally with on or upon. I have barely quoted... without observing upon it. Pope.

An instrument for observing or exhibiting the motions or properties of sounding bodies; especially, an apparatus invented by König for testing the quality of musical strings.

An apparatus for observing the phosphorescence produced in different bodies by the action of light, and for measuring its duration.

ed to determine the velocity of running water, by placing the curved end under water, and observing the height to which the fluid rises in the tube; a kind of current meter.

sition taken up by an army or a large detachment of troops for the purpose of checking or observing an opposing force.

nstrument the telescope of which revolves in the plane of the prime vertical, -- used for observing the transit of stars over this circle.

One who is very exact in observing forms and ceremonies. Milton.

agazine gun, under Magazine. -- Repeating instruments (Astron. & Surv.), instruments for observing angles, as a circle, theodolite, etc., so constructed that the angle may be measured several times in succession, and different, but successive and contiguous, portions of the graduated limb, before reading off the aggre…

A combining form usually signifying an instrument for viewing (with the eye) or observing (in any way); as in microscope, telescope, altoscope, anemoscope.

Having or observing logical sequence; logically consistent and rigorous; consecutive in development or transition of thought. The scheme of pantheistic omniscience so prevalent among the sequacious thinkers of the day. Sir W. Hamilton. Milton was not an extensive or discursive thinker, as Shakespeare was; for the motio…

o be sufficient for; to satisfy; as, to serve one's turn. Turn it into some advantage, by observing where it can serve another end. Jer. Taylor.

A device for determining the refractive state of the eye by observing the movements of the retinal lights and shadows. -- Ski*as"co*py (#), Ski*as"co*py (#), n.

rse in the Bible. To spell out a God in the works of creation. South. To sit spelling and observing divine justice upon every accident. Milton.

A kind of telemeter for measuring the distance of an object of known dimensions, by observing the angle it subtends; especially (Surveying), a graduated rod used to measure the distance of the place where it stands from an instrument having a telescope, by observing the number of the graduations of the rod that are see…