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multiple inflammatory changes in the nerves, producing great muscular debility, a painful rigidity of the limbs, and cachexy.

To spring with quick plunging leaps, descending with the fore legs rigid and the head held as low down as possible; -- said of a vicious horse or mule.

ris, having rounded buttonlike heads of flowers. (b) An American umbelliferous plant with rigid, narrow leaves, and flowers in dense heads. -- Button tree (Bot.), a genus of trees (Conocarpus), furnishing durable timber, mostly natives of the West Indies. -- To hold by the button, to detain in conversation to wearine…

to, or resembling, a corpse, or the changes produced by death; cadaverous; as, cadaveric rigidity. Dunglison. Cadaveric alkaloid, an alkaloid generated by the processes of decomposition in dead animal bodies, and thought by some to be the cause of the poisonous effects produced by the bodies. See Ptomaine.…

ncient cleargy who lived in community; a course of living prescribed for the clergy, less rigid that the monastic, and more restrained that the secular. -- Canonical obedience, submission to the canons of a canons of a church, especially the submission of the inferior cleargy to their bishops, and of other religious o…

A morbid condition caused by an overwhelming shock or extreme fear and marked by rigidity of the muscles. -- Cat`a*plec"tic (#), a.

Something rigid that holds fast or binds things together; a piece of wood or metal, used to hold two or more pieces together.

Grand or Great climacteric, the sixty-third year of human life. I should hardly yield my rigid fibers to be regenerated by them; nor begin, in my grand climacteric, to squall in their new accents, or to stammer, in my second cradle, the elemental sounds of their barbarous metaphysics. Burke.

Deprived of heat, or having a low temperature; not warm or hot; gelid; frigid. "The snowy top of cold Olympis." Milton.

A state of permanent rigidity or contraction of the muscles, generally of the flexor muscles.

n England, the Cicuta virosa; in the United States, the Cicuta maculata and the Archemora rigida. See Water hemlock.

A sharp and rigid point.

third degree, described by a moving straight line; -- used to illustrate the motions of a rigid body and also the forces acting on the body.

especially with training, especially with regard to order and obedience; one who enforces rigid discipline; a stickler for the observance of rules and methods of training; as, he is a better disciplinarian than scholar.

Exhibiting a sharp, frigid preciseness of execution, or the want of a delicate contour in form, and of easy transition in coloring. Dry area (Arch.), a small open space reserved outside the foundation of a building to guard it from damp. -- Dry blow. (a) (Med.) A blow which inflicts no wound, and causes no effusion of…

A level having a short telescope (hence its name) rigidly fixed to a table capable only of rotatory movement in a horizontal plane. The telescope is usually an inverting one. It is sometimes called the Troughton level, from the name of the inventor, and a variety improved by one Gavatt is known as the Gavatt level.…

ted. Erectile tissue (Anat.), a tissue which is capable of being greatly dilated and made rigid by the distension of the numerous blood vessels which it contains.

In a flat manner; evenly; horizontally; without spirit; dully; frigidly; peremptori;y; positively, plainly. "He flatly refused his aid." Sir P. Sidney. He that does the works of religion slowly, flatly, and without appetite. Jer. Taylor.

Willing or ready to yield to the influence of others; not invincibly rigid or obstinate; tractable; manageable; ductile; easy and compliant; wavering. Phocion was a man of great severity, and no ways flexible to the will of the people. Bacon. Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible. Shak.

To cause to become antiquated, rigid, or fixed, as by fossilization; to mummify; to deaden. Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth. Mrs. Browning.