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The doctrine or science of light, explaining its nature and phenomena; optics.

Containing a plaint; complaining; expressing sorrow with an audible voice. "My plaintful tongue." Sir P. Sidney.

Repining; complaining; lamenting. Dryden.

redress and punish some wrong; the carrying on of a judicial proceeding in behalf of a complaining party, as distinguished from defense.

To whimper; to whine, as a complaining child. It becometh not such a gallant to whine and pule. Barrow.

To follow a matter judicially, as a complaining party; to act as a prosecutor. Burrill.

Complaining; querulous; apt to complain. -- Quer`i*mo"ni*ous*ly, adv. -- Quer`i*mo"ni*ous*ness, n.

A complaint or complaining. [Obs.] E. Hall.

Apt to find fault; habitually complaining; disposed to murmur; as, a querulous man or people. Enmity can hardly be more annoying that querulous, jealous, exacting fondness. Macaulay.

Resolving, or explaining; as, the Resolute Doctor Durand. [Obs.]

thoritative instruction among the Hindoos; a book of institutes; especially, a treatise explaining the Vedas. [Written also sastra.]

Any sorrowful cry or sound. The tremulous sob of the complaining owl. Wordsworth.

tropes; specifically, one who avoids the literal sense of the language of Scripture by explaining it as mere tropes and figures of speech.

ses, is the locus of a wave surface of light in the interior of crystals. It is used in explaining the phenomena of double refraction. See under Refraction. -- Wave theory. (Physics) See Undulatory theory, under Undulatory.