Search the Dictionary

The lower and loose part of a coat, dress, or other like garment; the part below the waist; as, the skirt of a coat, a dress, or a mantle.

e small notes moving by conjoint degrees, and leading to a principal note either above or below.

Smart money (see below). [Canf]

ium, potassium, etc., with the fatty acids (oleic, stearic, palmitic, etc.). See the Note below, and cf. Saponification. By extension, any compound of similar composition or properties, whether used as a cleaning agent or not.

he sun; as, the solar system; solar light; solar rays; solar influence. See Solar system, below.

of the nature of; to be consonant with. [Obs., except in the phrase To sound in damages, below.] Soun[d]ing in moral virtue was his speech. Chaucer. -- To sound in damages (Law), to have the essential quality of damages. This is said of an action brought, not for the recovery of a specific thing, as replevin, etc., bu…

nch crowns." Shak. -- Span iron (Naut.), a special kind of harpoon, usually secured just below the gunwale of a whaleboat. -- Span roof, a common roof, having two slopes and one ridge, with eaves on both sides. Gwilt. -- Span shackle (Naut.), a large bolt driven through the forecastle deck, with a triangular shackle…

ctor of polished metal, especially one used in reflecting telescopes. See Speculum metal, below.

ted metal, it rolls about in spheroidal drops or masses, at a temperature several degrees below ebullition, and without actual contact with the heated surface, -- a phenomenon due to the repulsive force of heat, the intervention of a cushion of nonconducting vapor, and the cooling effect of evaporation.…

See Splent coal, below. Splent coal, an inferior kind of cannel coal from Scotch collieries; -- called also splent, splint, and splint coal.

One of the small plates of metal used in making splint armor. See Splint armor, below. The knees and feet were defended by splints, or thin plates of steel. Sir. W. Scott.

eans of the extract or by decoction. -- Spruce grouse. (Zoöl.) Same as Spruce partridge, below. -- Spruce leather. See Spruce, n., 3. -- Spruce partridge (Zoöl.), a handsome American grouse (Dendragapus Canadensis) found in Canada and the Northern United States; -- called also Canada grouse.

A title of dignity next in degree below knight, and above gentleman. See Esquire. [Eng.] "His privy knights and squires." Chaucer.

disturbed it returns to its former position, as in the case when the center of gravity is below the point or axis of support; -- opposed to unstable equilibrium, in which the body if disturbed does not tend to return to its former position, but to move farther away from it, as in the case of a body supported at a point…

al; but originally used in the singular only. "I a winding stair found." Chaucer's Dream. Below stairs, in the basement or lower part of a house, where the servants are. -- Flight of stairs, the stairs which make the whole ascent of a story. -- Pair of stairs, a set or flight of stairs. -- pair, in this phrase, havi…

ter having been marked for omission; to mark with the word stet, or with a series of dots below or beside the matter; as, the proof reader stetted a deled footnote.

A shallow rapid in a river; also, the current below a waterfall. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] Patient anglers, standing all the day Near to some shallow stickle or deep bay. W. Browne.

Same as Stock account, below.

al anæsthetic, esp. by injection into the sheath of the spinal cord, producing anæsthesia below the point of introduction.

A prefix signifying under, below, beneath, and hence often, in an inferior position or degree, in an imperfect or partial state, as in subscribe, substruct, subserve, subject, subordinate, subacid, subastringent, subgranular, suborn. Sub- in Latin compounds often becomes sum- before m, sur before r, and regularly becom…