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Something performed, or to be done, requiring aptness and dexterity; a trick; a device. "The knacks of japers." Chaucer. For how should equal colors do the knack ! Pope.

" A knock at the door." Longfellow. A loud cry or some great knock. Holland. Knock off, a device in a knitting machine to remove loops from the needles.

a cam or the like for disconnecting something, as a device in a knitting machine to remove loops from the needles.

A genus of great seaweeds with long and broad fronds; kelp, or devil's apron. The fronds commonly grow in clusters, and are sometimes from thirty to fifty feet in length. See Illust. of Kelp.

A device or mechanism for producing light by electricity. See Incandescent lamp, under Incandescent. Æolipile lamp, a hollow ball of copper containing alcohol which is converted into vapor by a lamp beneath, so as to make a powerful blowpipe flame when the vapor is ignited. Weale. -- Arc lamp (Elec.), a form of lamp i…

A slip; an error; a fault; a failing in duty; a slight deviation from truth or rectitude. To guard against those lapses and failings to which our infirmities daily expose us. Rogers.

neffectual, void, or forfeited; as, a lapsed policy of insurance; a lapsed legacy. Lapsed devise, Lapsed legacy (Law), a devise, or legacy, which fails to take effect in consequence of the death of the devisee, or legatee, before that of the testator, or for ether cause. Wharton (Law Dict.).

Extent or breadth of signification, application, etc.; extent of deviation from a standard, as truth, style, etc. No discreet man will believe Augustine's miracles, in the latitude of monkish relations. Fuller.

Indifferent to a strict application of any standard of belief or opinion; hence, deviating more or less widely from such standard; lax in doctrine; as, latitudinarian divines; latitudinarian theology. Latitudinarian sentiments upon religious subjects. Allibone.

To incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating; as, she leaned out at the window; a leaning column. "He leant forward." Dickens.

A device for letting off, releasing, or giving forth, as the warp from the cylinder of a loom.

An instrument, devised by Professor Helmholtz, for testing the color perception of the eye, or for comparing different lights, as to their constituent color or their relative whiteness.

That deviation from strict fact, form, or rule, in which an artist or writer indulges, assuming that it will be permitted for the sake of the advantage or effect gained; as, poetic license; grammatical license, etc.

near the horizon, esp. at the close of a hot day. -- Lightning arrester (Telegraphy), a device, at the place where a wire enters a building, for preventing injury by lightning to an operator or instrument. It consists of a short circuit to the ground interrupted by a thin nonconductor over which lightning jumps. Call…

d as a part or member of, or attachment to, something else. Shak. That little limb of the devil has cheated the gallows. Sir W. Scott.

. Them that add to the Word of God what them listeth. Hooker. Let other men think of your devices as they list. Whitgift.

em. -- Local attraction (Magnetism), an attraction near a compass, causing its needle to deviate from its proper direction, especially on shipboard. -- Local battery (Teleg.), the battery which actuates the recording instruments of a telegraphic station, as distinguished from the battery furnishing a current for the…

A device for keeping a wheel from turning.

One of a class of auxiliary numbers, devised by John Napier, of Merchiston, Scotland (1550-1617), to abridge arithmetical calculations, by the use of addition and subtraction in place of multiplication and division.

Texas; -- a nickname alluding to the single star on its coat of arms, being the device used on its flag and seal when it was a republic.