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The manner of using the fingers in playing or striking the keys of an instrument of music; movement or management of the fingers in playing on a musical instrument, in typewriting, etc.

A stopper, as in a wind instrument of music. [Obs.] Bacon.

in a street, building, etc., for extinguishing fires. -- Fire policy, the writing or instrument expressing the contract of insurance against loss by fire. -- Fire pot. (a) (Mil.) A small earthen pot filled with combustibles, formerly used as a missile in war. (b) The cast iron vessel which holds the fuel or fire in a…

Fuel; firewood or coal. [Obs.] Mortimer. Firing iron, an instrument used in cauterizing.

The upper part of a duet, trio, etc., either vocal or instrumental; -- so called because it generally expresses the air, and has a preëminence in the combined effect.

An instrument used by the ancients in driving piles.

old recorder. Flageolet tones (Mus.), the naturel harmonics or overtones of stringed instruments.

An instrument for threshing or beating grain from the ear by hand, consisting of a wooden staff or handle, at the end of which a stouter and shorter pole or club, called a swipe, is so hung as to swing freely. His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn. Milton.

ors in the flower, the petals having large stripes. Flake knife (Archæol.), a cutting instrument used by savage tribes, made of a flake or chip of hard stone. Tylor. -- Flake stand, the cooling tub or vessel of a still worm. Knight. -- Flake white. (Paint.) (a) The purest white lead, in the form of flakes or scales.…

A sharp instrument used for opening veins, lancing gums, etc.; a kind of lancet. Fleam tooth, a tooth of a saw shaped like an isosceles triangle; a peg tooth. Knight.

The small distortion of an astronomical instrument caused by the weight of its parts; the amount to be added or substracted from the observed readings of the instrument to correct them for this distortion. The flexure of a curve (Math.), the bending of a curve towards or from a straight line.

tially of a silicate of lead and potassium. It is used for tableware, and for optical instruments, as prisms, its density giving a high degree of dispersive power; -- so called, because formerly the silica was obtained from pulverized flints. Called also crystal glass. Cf. Glass.

An instrument for cleaning out a hole drilled in stone for blasting.

An instrument for observing or exhibiting fluorescence.

A musical wind instrument, consisting of a hollow cylinder or pipe, with holes along its length, stopped by the fingers or by keys which are opened by the fingers. The modern flute is closed at the upper end, and blown with the mouth at a lateral hole. The breathing flute's soft notes are heard around. Pope.…

An instrument for measuring and recording automatically the rise and fall of a river.

An instrument for measuring the height of water in a river; a river gauge.

(Photog.) An assisting instrument for focusing an object in or before a camera. Knight.

One who, or that which, folds; esp., a flat, knifelike instrument used for folding paper.

A pair of pinchers, or tongs; an instrument for grasping, holding firmly, or exerting traction upon, bodies which it would be inconvenient or impracticable to seize with the fingers, especially one for delicate operations, as those of watchmakers, surgeons, accoucheurs, dentists, etc.