Search the Dictionary

A bar of cartilage at the base of the embryonic fins of some fishes. It develops into the metapterygium. -- Ba*sip`ter*yg"i*al (, a.

An edible, spiny-finned fish, esp. of the genera Roccus, Labrax, and related genera. There are many species.

A wind instrument of the double reed kind, furnished with holes, which are stopped by the fingers, and by keys, as in flutes. It forms the natural bass to the oboe, clarinet, etc.

ying mammals, in which the wings are formed by a membrane stretched between the elongated fingers, legs, and tail. The common bats are small and insectivorous. See Cheiroptera and Vampire. Bat tick (Zoöl.), a wingless, dipterous insect of the genus Nycteribia, parasitic on bats.

One who practices or finds sport in batfowling.

Originally, cambric or lawn of fine linen; now applied also to cloth of similar texture made of cotton.

d used in fastening the edges of a tarpaulin to the deck, also around masts to prevent chafing. (c) A long, thin strip used to strengthen a part, to cover a crack, etc. Batten door (Arch.), a door made of boards of the whole length of the door, secured by battens nailed crosswise.

A trifling piece of finery; a gewgaw; that which is gay and showy without real value; a cheap, showy plaything. The ineffective bauble of an Indian pagod. Sheridan.

A fine fellow; -- a term of endearment. [Obs.] "How now, my bawcock " Shak.

(to fall upon); bespeak (to speak for). (c) To make the action of a verb particular or definite; as, beget (to get as offspring); beset (to set around).

field. Spenser. It is quite startling, on going over the beadroll of English worthies, to find how few are directly represented in the male line. Quart. Rev.

An animal which has some resemblance to a bear in form or habits, but no real affinity; as, the woolly bear; ant bear; water bear; sea bear.

a wind which necessitates tacking in order to make progress. -- To beat about, to try to find; to search by various means or ways. Addison. -- To beat about the bush, to approach a subject circuitously. -- To beat up and down (Hunting), to run first one way and then another; -- said of a stag. -- To beat up for rec…

Like a beau; characteristic of a beau; foppish; fine. "A beauish young spark." Byrom.

a multiplicity of symmetrical parts uniting in a consistent whole. Wordsworth. The old definition of beauty, in the Roman school, was, "multitude in unity;" and there is no doubt that such is the principle of beauty. Coleridge.

e of, to be the present state or place of; to be the fate of; to be the end of; to be the final or subsequent condition of. What is then become of so huge a multitude Sir W. Raleigh.

A place appropriated to the confinement and care of the insane; a madhouse. Abp. Tillotson.

Confined to the bed by sickness or infirmity. "Her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father." Shak. "The estate of a bedridden old gentleman." Macaulay.

To finish by subjecting to a hammering process in a beetle or beetling machine; as, to beetle cotton goods.

In arrears financially; in a state where expenditures have exceeded the receipt of funds.