Search the Dictionary

A particular appearance or state in a regularly recurring cycle of changes with respect to quantity of illumination or form of enlightened disk; as, the phases of the moon or planets. See Illust. under Moon.

One of a religious order who are the regular clerks of the Scuole Pie (religious schools), an institute of secondary education, founded at Rome in the last years of the 16th century. Addis & Arnold.

Indians living near Acapulco. They are remarkable for having the dark skin of the face irregularly spotted with white. Called also speckled Indians.

A superficial affection of the skin, characterized by irregular patches of thin scales which are shed in branlike particles. Pityriasis versicolor Etym: [NL.] (Med.), a parasitic disease of the skin, characterized by the development of reddish or brownish patches.

Platelike; having irregular, platelike, bony scales, often bearing spines; pertaining to the placoids.

Having plagæ, or irregular enlongated color spots.

An instrument for measuring the area of any plane figure, however irregular, by passing a tracer around the bounding line; a platometer.

Pure, passionless; nonsexual; philosophical. Platonic bodies, the five regular geometrical solids; namely, the tetrahedron, hexahedron or cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. -- Platonic love, a pure, spiritual affection, subsisting between persons of opposite sex, unmixed with carnal desires, and regardin…

To move in any manner; especially, to move regularly with alternate or reciprocating motion; to operate; to act; as, the fountain plays. The heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs play. Cheyne.

An irregular form of corpuscle found in the blood in cases of profound anæmia, probably a degenerated red blood corpuscle.

n express; especially, one who is employed by the government to carry letters and parcels regularly from one place to another; a letter carrier; a postman. In certain places there be always fresh posts, to carry that further which is brought unto them by the other. Abp. Abbot. I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,…

To preach by expounding Scripture verse by verse, in regular order.

ilar kind; usage; habit; custom; as, the practice of rising early; the practice of making regular entries of accounts; the practice of daily exercise. A heart . . . exercised with covetous practices. 2 Pet. ii. 14.

One of a religious order of regular canons founded by St. Norbert at Prémontré, in France, in 1119. The members of the order are called also White Canons, Norbertines, and Premonstrants.

r as it bitten off. Premorse root or leaves (Bot.), such as have an abrupt, ragged, and irregular termination, as if bitten off short.

in advance to all cases of a particular class; e. g., the presumption of innocence and of regularity of records. Such a presumption is rebuttable or irrebuttable.

Beyond of different from what is natural, or according to the regular course of things, but not clearly supernatural or miraculous; strange; inexplicable; extraordinary; uncommon; irregular; abnormal; as, a preternatural appearance; a preternatural stillness; a preternatural presentation (in childbirth) or labor. This…

ee in the first and the fourth foot, and an amphimacer in the third; -- applied also to a regular hexameter verse when so constructed as to be divisible into two portions of three feet each. Andrews.

A mathematical point; -- regularly used in old English translations of Euclid.

Formal; precise; affectedly neat or nice; as, prim regularity; a prim person. Swift.