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Not called for; not required or needed; improper; gratuitous; wanton.

Ceremonially impure; needing ritual cleansing. He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. Num. xix. 11.

urately measuring magnetic intensities, also for determining declinations of the magnetic needle.

Not necessary; not required under the circumstances; unless; needless; as, unnecessary labor, care, or rigor. -- Un*nec"es*sa*ri*ly, adv. -- Un*nec"es*sa*ri*ness, n.

Not ready or prepared; not prompt; slow; awkward; clumsy. Dryden. Nor need the unready virgin strike her breast. Keble.

To draw or take out a thread from; as, to unthread a needle.

Occasion or need to employ; necessity; as, to have no further use for a book. Shak.

a bedstead, from the bed to the floor. [Written also valence.] Valance of Venice gold in needlework. Shak.

the sun. It is greater at the octants, and zero at the quadratures. -- Variation of the needle (Geog. & Naut.), the angle included between the true and magnetic meridians of a place; the deviation of the direction of a magnetic needle from the true north and south line; -- called also declination of the needle.…

(Theobroma). -- Vegetable flannel, a textile material, manufactured in Germany from pine-needle wool, a down or fiber obtained from the leaves of the Pinus sylvestris. -- Vegetable ivory. See Ivory nut, under Ivory. -- Vegetable jelly. See Pectin. -- Vegetable kingdom. (Nat. Hist.) See the last Phrase, below. --…

f the vital principle. Apart from the phenomena of consciousness, vital actions no longer need to be considered as of a mysterious and unfathomable character, nor vital force as anything other than a form of physical energy derived from, and convertible into, other well- known forces of nature. -- Vital functions (Phy…

te of not having; the condition of being without anything; absence or scarcity of what is needed or desired; deficiency; lack; as, a want of power or knowledge for any purpose; want of food and clothing. And me, his parent, would full soon devour For want of other prey. Milton. From having wishes in consequence of our…

Absent; lacking; missing; also, deficient; destitute; needy; as, one of the twelve is wanting; I shall not be wanting in exertion.

ing. -- Warp frame, or Warp-net frame, a machine for making warp lace having a number of needles and employing a thread for each needle. -- Warp knitting, a kind of knitting in which a number of threads are interchained each with one or more contiguous threads on either side; -- also called warp weaving. -- Warp lac…

e land; waste paper. But his waste words returned to him in vain. Spenser. Not a waste or needless sound, Till we come to holier ground. Milton. Ill day which made this beauty waste. Emerson.

Expending, or tending to expend, property, or that which is valuable, in a needless or useless manner; lavish; prodigal; as, a wasteful person; a wasteful disposition.

wheel is set. -- Wheel rope (Naut.), a tiller rope. See under Tiller. -- Wheel stitch (Needlework), a stitch resembling a spider's web, worked into the material, and not over an open space. Caulfeild & S. (Dict. of Needlework). -- Wheel tree (Bot.), a tree (Aspidosperma excelsum) of Guiana, which has a trunk so cur…

g the rolled edge and drawing up the thread; as, to whip a ruffle. In half-whipped muslin needles useless lie. Gay.

sound; well. [She] findeth there her friends hole and sound. Chaucer. They that be whole need not a physician. Matt. ix. 12. When Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole. Tennyson. Whole blood. (Law of Descent) See under Blood, n., 2. -- Whole note (Mus.), the note which represents a note of longest duration in common u…

s, and is found to a less extent in herbaceous stems. It consists of elongated tubular or needle-shaped cells of various kinds, usually interwoven with the shinning bands called silver grain.