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he at first called the trivial name. -- Specific performance (Law), the peformance of a contract or agreement as decreed by a court of equity.

ion or enumeration of particulars, as of charges against a public officer, the terms of a contract, the description of an invention, as in a patent; also, a single article, item, or particular, an allegation of a specific act, as in a charge of official misconduct.

A muscle which surrounds, and by its contraction tends to close, a natural opening; as, the sphincter of the bladder.

traw, or the like, usually of a nearly conical form, but sometimes rectangular or oblong, contracted at the top to a point or ridge, and sometimes covered with thatch. But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack. Cowper.

disturbance in the formation of sounds. It is due essentially to long-continued spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm, by which expiration is preented, and hence it may be considered as a spasmodic inspiration.

political abilities. The minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is shed upon them. More.

. It differs from stricture in being applied especially to diffused rather than localized contractions, and in always indicating an origin organic and not spasmodic.

greement or covenant with any person or company to do or forbear anything; to bargain; to contract; to settle terms; as, certain princes stipulated to assist each other in resisting the armies of France.

The act of stipulating; a contracting or bargaining; an agreement.

One who stipulates, contracts, or covenants.

leaves or other organs opening into the intercellular spaces, and usually bordered by two contractile cells.

Of or pertaining to the operation of forming a mouth where the aperture has been contracted, or in any way deformed.

ch the optic axes can not be directed to the same object, -- a defect due either to undue contraction or to undue relaxation of one or more of the muscles which move the eyeball; squinting; cross-eye.

To make strait; to make narrow; hence, to contract; to confine. Waters, when straitened, as at the falls of bridges, give a roaring noise. Bacon. In narrow circuit, straitened by a foe. Milton.

One not privy or party an act, contract, or title; a mere intruder or intermeddler; one who interferes without right; as, actual possession of land gives a good title against a stranger having no title; as to strangers, a mortgage is considered merely as a pledge; a mere stranger to the levy.

Contracted at irregular intervals, if tied with a ligature; constricted. Strangulated hernia. (Med.) See under Hernia.

A painful discharge of urine, drop by drop, produced by spasmodic muscular contraction.

A localized morbid contraction of any passage of the body. Cf. Organic stricture, and Spasmodic stricture, under Organic, and Spasmodic. Arbuthnot.

n habitual sudden twitching of the hinder leg of a horse, or an involuntary or convulsive contraction of the muscles that raise the hock. [Written also springhalt.]

A contraction of Studding sail. With every rag set, stunsails, sky scrapers and all. Lowell.