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nsidered, the system is univariant, that is, the fixing of one condition, as temperature, determines the others.

A method of surveying or map making by photography, used also in determining the height and motions of clouds, sea waves, and the like.

An instrument for determining the sensibility of the plates employed in photographic processes to luminous rays.

Pitched; fixed; determined. [Obs.] [His horse] pight him on the pommel of his head. Chaucer. I found him pight to do it. Shak.

The relative acuteness or gravity of a tone, determined by the number of vibrations which produce it; the place of any tone upon a scale of high and low.

A bent tube used to determine the velocity of running water, by placing the curved end under water, and observing the height to which the fluid rises in the tube; a kind of current meter.

A decree or determination; a dictum. [Obs.] "The placits and opinions of other philosophers." Evelyn.

horizontal plane upon which the object which is to be delineated, or whose place is to be determined, is supposed to stand. -- Perspective plane. See Perspective. -- Plane at infinity (Geom.), a plane in which points infinitely distant are conceived as situated. -- Plane iron, the cutting chisel of a joiner's plane.…

f love for which Plato was a warm advocate. -- Platonic year (Astron.), a period of time determined by the revolution of the equinoxes, or the space of time in which the stars and constellations return to their former places in respect to the equinoxes; -- called also great year. This revolution, which is caused by th…

to maintain by arguments or reasons presented to a tribunal or person having uthority to determine; to argue at the bar; as, to plead a cause before a court or jury. Every man should plead his own matter. Sir T. More.

tions of growth of a number of Protean species, each of which may exhibit, according to undetermined conditions, all or some of the forms characteristic of the different genera and species.

An instrument for determining and registering the variations in the size or volume of a limb, as the arm or leg, and hence the variations in the amount of blood in the limb. -- Pleth`ys*mo*graph"ic, a.

An adjustable staff formerly attached to the plow beam to determine the depth of the furrow. Piers Plowman.

Of or pertaining to a pluviometer; determined by a pluviometer.

An instrument for determining the amount of polarization of light, or the proportion of polarized light, in a partially polarized ray.

A property of the conic sections by virtue of which a given point determines a corresponding right line and a given right line determines a corresponding point. See Polar, n.

proposition affirming the possibility of finding such conditions as will render a certain determinate problem indeterminate or capable of innumerable solutions. Playfair.

Firm; determined; fixed. "A most posed . . . and grave behavior." [Obs.] Urquhart.

tion, or of other forces acting in space, a function of the rectangular coordinates which determine the position of a point, such that its differential coefficients with respect to the coördinates are equal to the components of the force at the point considered; -- also called potential function, or force function. It…

Deterioration; degeneracy; corruption; especially, moral crookedness; moral perversion; perverseness; depravity; as, the pravity of human nature. "The pravity of the will." South.