Search the Dictionary

A myth accounting for the discovery of arts and sciences or the advent of a higher civilization, as in the Prometheus myth.

or exibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious; curious; as, cunning work. Over them Arachne high did lift Her cunning web. Spenser.

ning copper; -- said of those compounds of copper in which this element is present in its highest proportion.

To make a curvet; to leap; to bound. 'Oft and high he did curvet." Drayton.

A violent storm, often of vast extent, characterized by high winds rotating about a calm center of low atmospheric pressure. This center moves onward, often with a velocity of twenty or thirty miles an hour.

A highly volatile liquid, condensed by cold and pressure from the first products of the distillation of petroleum; -- used for producing low temperatures.

A large and highly venomous Asiatic viper (Daboia xanthica).

The high or principal table, at the end of a hall, at which the chief guests were seated; also, the chief seat at the high table. [Obs.]

and steel elaborately twisted and welded together; used for making gun barrels, etc., of high quality, in which the surface, when polished and acted upon by acid, has a damasc appearance. -- Damascus steel. See Damask steel, under Damask, a.

To have courage for; to attempt courageously; to venture to do or to undertake. What high concentration of steady feeling makes men dare every thing and do anything Bagehot. To wrest it from barbarism, to dare its solitudes. The Century.

um perenne (rye grass or ray grass), and its variety L. Italicum (Italian rye grass), are highly esteemed for pasture and for making hay.

hence, the beginning. Milton. The tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us. Luke i. 78.

Bearing a high price; high-priced; costly; expensive. The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear. Shak.

Bought at a high price; as, dear-bought experience.

At a high rate or price; grievously. He buys his mistress dearly with his throne. Dryden.

elation or ratio of the number of deaths to the population. At all ages the death rate is higher in towns than in rural districts. Darwin. -- Death rattle, a rattling or gurgling in the throat of a dying person. -- Death's door, the boundary of life; the partition dividing life from death. -- Death stroke, a stroke c…

To reduce from a higher to a lower state or grade of worth, dignity, purity, station, etc.; to degrade; to lower; to deteriorate; to abase; as, to debase the character by crime; to debase the mind by frivolity; to debase style by vulgar words. The coin which was adulterated and debased. Hale. It is a kind of taking God…

omposite contest consisting of a 100-meter run, a broad jump, putting the shot, a running high-jump, a 400-meter run, throwing the discus, a 100-meter hurdle race, pole vaulting, throwing the javelin, and a 1500-meter run.

One of the higher hydrocarbons, C10H20, of the ethylene series.

One of the higher hydrocarbons, C10H15, of the acetylene series; -- called also decenylene.