Search the Dictionary

The proportion of pure silver or gold in jewelry, bullion, or coins.

A chisel, thin in proportion to its width. It has a tang to enter the handle instead of a socket for receiving it. Knight.

In Old English, a song; a strain; a canto or portion of a ballad; a passus. [Written also fitte, fytte, etc.] To play some pleasant fit. Spenser.

rn it or to attack him on the flank. -- Flank movement, a change of march by an army, or portion of one, in order to turn one or both wings of the enemy, or to take up a new position. -- Flanks of a frontier, salient points in a national boundary, strengthened to protect the frontier against hostile incursion. -- Fl…

A disease in the lips of horses. Flap tile, a tile with a bent up portion, to turn a corner or catch a drip. -- Flap valve (Mech.), a valve which opens and shuts upon one hinged side; a clack valve.

A horizontal vein or ore deposit auxiliary to a main vein; also, any horizontal portion of a vein not elsewhere horizontal. Raymond.

r combing. Earth flax (Min.), amianthus. -- Flax brake, a machine for removing the woody portion of flax from the fibrous. -- Flax comb, a hatchel, hackle, or heckle. -- Flax cotton, the fiber of flax, reduced by steeping in bicarbinate of soda and acidulated liquids, and prepared for bleaching and spinning like cot…

In the popular sense, the bloom or blossom of a plant; the showy portion, usually of a different color, shape, and texture from the foliage.

A complete assortment of printing type of one size, including a due proportion of all the letters in the alphabet, large and small, points, accents, and whatever else is necessary for printing with that variety of types; a fount.

The thickened or sloping portion of a wall, or of an embankment at its foot. Footing course (Arch.), one of the courses of masonry at the foot of a wall, broader than the courses above. -- To pay one's footing, to pay a fee on first doing anything, as working at a trade or in a shop. Wright. -- Footing beam, the tie…

d, or of a chair, settee, etc. -- Fore peak (Naut.), the angle within a ship's bows; the portion of the hold which is farthest forward. -- Fore piece, a front piece, as the flap in the fore part of a sidesaddle, to guard the rider's dress. -- Fore plane, a carpenter's plane, in size and use between a jack plane and…

That portion of the natural shore on the outside of the embankment which receives the stock of waves and deadens their force. Knight.

In distillation of low wines, the first portion of spirit that comes over, being a fluid abounding in fusel oil. Knight.

Literally, to put out of a family; hence, to portion off, so as to exclude further claim of inheritance; to emancipate (as a with his own consent) from paternal authority. Blackstone.

uck; hap; also, the personified or deified power regarded as determining human success, apportioning happiness and unhappiness, and distributing arbitrarily or fortuitously the lots of life. 'T is more by fortune, lady, than by merit. Shak. O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle. Shak.

Luckless; also, destitute of a fortune or portion. Spenser.

The forked piece between two adjacent fingers, to which the front and back portions are sewed. Knight.

A portion; a fragment. Some niggard fractions of an hour. Tennyson.

By fractions or separate portions; as, to distill a liquid fractionally, that is, so as to separate different portions.

To separate into different portions or fractions, as in the distillation of liquids.