Search the Dictionary

A heavy, brilliant red pigment, consisting of an oxide of lead, Pb3O4, obtained by exposing lead or massicot to a gentle and continued heat in the air. It is used as a cement, as a paint, and in the manufacture of flint glass. Called also red lead.

A fur esteemed in the Middle Ages as a part of costume. It is uncertain whether it was the fur of one animal only or of different animals.

A singing bird of India of the family Campephagidæ.

A carnivorous mammal of the genus Putorius, allied to the weasel. The European mink is Putorius lutreola. The common American mink (P. vison) varies from yellowish brown to black. Its fur is highly valued. Called also minx, nurik, and vison.

specifically, one of a class of German poets and musicians who flourished from about the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the fourteenth century. They were chiefly of noble birth, and made love and beauty the subjects of their verses.

Leuciscus phoxinus); sometimes applied also to the young of larger kinds; -- called also minim and minny. The name is also applied to several allied American species, of the genera Phoxinus, Notropis, or Minnilus, and Rhinichthys.

A minnow.

An Asiatic bird (Gracula musica), allied to the starlings. It is black, with a white spot on the wings, and a pair of flat yellow wattles on the head. It is often tamed and taught to pronounce words.

Inferior in bulk, degree, importance, etc.; less; smaller; of little account; as, minor divisions of a body.

A custom or right, analogous to borough-English in England, formerly existing in various parts of Europe, and surviving in parts of Germany and Austria, by which certain entailed estates, as a homestead and adjacent land, descend to the youngest male heir.

To diminish. [R.] Sir T. Browne.

A diminution. [R.] Sir T. Browne.

See Franciscan Nuns, under Franciscan, a.

A Franciscan friar.

The state of being a minor, or under age.

A king and lawgiver of Crete, fabled to be the son of Jupiter and Europa. After death he was made a judge in the Lower Regions.

A fabled monster, half man and half bull, confined in the labyrinth constructed by Dædalus in Crete.

See Minnow.

en retained and applied to the church after the monastery has ceased to exist (as Beverly Minster, Southwell Minster, etc.), and is also improperly used for any large church. Minster house, the official house in which the canons of a cathedral live in common or in rotation. Shipley.

In the Middle Ages, one of an order of men who subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sang verses to the accompaniment of a harp or other instrument; in modern times, a poet; a bard; a singer and harper; a musician. Chaucer.