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Deviating or departing from the center, or from the line of a circle; as, an eccentric or elliptical orbit; pertaining to deviation from the center or from true circular motion.

church; not secular; as, ecclesiastical affairs or history; ecclesiastical courts. Every circumstance of ecclesiastical order and discipline was an abomination. Cowper. Ecclesiastical commissioners for England, a permanent commission established by Parliament in 1836, to consider and report upon the affairs of the Est…

A great circle of the celestial sphere, making an angle with the equinoctial of about 23º 28'. It is the apparent path of the sun, or the real path of the earth as seen from the sun.

An order of Bryozoa in which the anus lies outside the circle of tentacles.

A current of water or air moving in a circular direction; a whirlpool. And smiling eddies dimpled on the main. Dryden. Wheel through the air, in circling eddies play. Addison.

An induced electric current circulating wholly within a mass of metal; -- called also Foucault current.

mill, a crushing or grinding mill in which stones roll around on their edges, on a level circular bed; -- used for ore, and as an oil mill. Called also Chilian mill. -- Edge molding (Arch.), a molding whose section is made up of two curves meeting in an angle. -- Edge plane. (a) (Carp.) A plane for edging boards. (b…

an effigy; hence, to fashion; to adapt. [He must] effigiate and conform himself to those circumstances. Jer. Taylor.

e a painting or a literary work. The sap is . . . still more elaborated and exalted as it circulates through the vessels of the plant. Arbuthnot.

chronograph. -- Electric current, a current or stream of electricity traversing a closed circuit formed of conducting substances, or passing by means of conductors from one body to another which is in a different electrical state. -- Electric, or Electrical, eel (Zoöl.), a South American eel-like fresh-water fish of…

ifestation of energy, exhibiting itself when in disturbed equilibrium or in activity by a circuit movement, the fact of direction in which involves polarity, or opposition of properties in opposite directions; also, by attraction for many substances, by a law involving attraction between surfaces of unlike polarity, an…

The motion of electricity or its passage from one metal to another in a voltaic circuit; mechanical action produced by means of electricity.

of the effect of an electric current upon the temperature of a conductor, or a part of a circuit composed of two different metals.

, vital processes; -- said of certain electric currents supposed by some physiologists to circulate in the nerves of animals.

ertaining to electrical tension; -- said of a supposed peculiar condition of a conducting circuit during its exposure to the action of another conducting circuit traversed by a uniform electric current when both circuits remain stationary. Faraday.

The distance of a celestial object above the horizon, or the arc of a vertical circle intercepted between it and the horizon; altitude; as, the elevation of the pole, or of a star.

blong figure, bounded by a regular curve, which corresponds to an oblique projection of a circle, or an oblique section of a cone through its opposite sides. The greatest diameter of the ellipse is the major axis, and the least diameter is the minor axis. See Conic section, under Conic, and cf. Focus.…

A solid, all plane sections of which are ellipses or circles. See Conoid, n., 2 (a).

Deviation of an ellipse or a spheroid from the form of a circle or a sphere; especially, in reference to the figure of the earth, the difference between the equatorial and polar semidiameters, divided by the equatorial; thus, the ellipticity of the earth is

To encircle or embrace. [Obs.] Sir P. Sidney.