Search the Dictionary

Smooth and deceptive. [Obs.] Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground [bowling ground]. Shak.

center, which, when saturated with water and pressed upon a stone or other body having a smooth surface, adheres, by reason of the atmospheric pressure, with such force as to enable a considerable weight to be thus lifted by the string; -- used by children as a plaything.

Uniformly or evenly distributed or spread; even; smooth. See Suant. Thoreau.

Evenly; smoothly.

the west. Sunset shell (Zoöl.), a West Indian marine bivalve (Tellina radiata) having a smooth shell marked with radiating bands of varied colors resembling those seen at sunset or before sunrise; -- called also rising sun.

To give a surface to; especially, to cause to have a smooth or plain surface; to make smooth or plain.

Free from surges; smooth; calm.

In an easy, gliding manner, as if swimming; smoothly; successfully; prosperously.

rthrodial joints. -- Synovial fluid, synovia. -- Synovial membrane, the dense and very smooth connective tissue membrane which secretes synovia and surrounds synovial capsules and other synovial cavities.

The lapping of chamfered edges of planks to make a smooth surface, as for a bulkhead.

plants found in the calicles of certain corals and hydroids. Tabula rasa ( Etym: [L.], a smoothed tablet; hence, figuratively, the mind in its earliest state, before receiving impressions from without; -- a term used by Hobbes, Locke, and others, in maintaining a theory opposed to the doctrine of innate ideas.…

A fine, smooth stuff of silk, having usually the wavy luster called watering. The term has also been applied to different kinds of silk goods, from the 16th century to modern times. Lined with taffeta and with sendal. Chaucer.

To drive in or down by frequent gentle strokes; as, to tamp earth so as to make a smooth place.

esignating, or pert. to, a road pavement having a surface of small stone rolled hard and smooth, distinguished from macadam road by its firm foundation of large stones with fragments of stone wedged tightly, in the interstices; as, telford pavement, road, etc.

ng ears, while others, at the English and the black-and-tan terriers, have short, close, smooth hair and upright ears.

Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished. [Obs.] Many stones, . . . although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive. Sir T. Browne.

n. This condition of muscle, this fusion of a number of simple spasms into an apparently smooth, continuous effort, is known as tetanus, or tetanic contraction. Foster.

t character; as, a low, high, loud, grave, acute, sweet, or harsh tone. [Harmony divine] smooths her charming tones. Milton. Tones that with seraph hymns might blend. Keble.

proportion to their draught of water, that they could bear but little canvas, even with smooth seas and light and favorable winds. Motley.

Any of two or more narrow paths, of steel, smooth stone, or the like, laid in a public roadway otherwise formed of an inferior pavement, as cobblestones, to provide an easy way for wheels.