SKAT n.
e privilege of attempting any of several games or tasks, in most of which the player undertaking the game must take tricks counting in aggregate at least 61 (the counting cards being ace 11, ten 10, king 4, queen 3, jack 2). The four jacks are the best trumps, ranking club, spade, heart, diamond, and ten outranks king…
SNAIL n.
a testudo. [Obs.] They had also all manner of gynes [engines] . . . that needful is [in] taking or sieging of castle or of city, as snails, that was naught else but hollow pavises and targets, under the which men, when they fought, were heled [protected], . . . as the snail is in his house; therefore they cleped them…
SORS n.
Homeric or Virgilian lots], a form of divination anciently practiced, which consisted in taking the first passage on which the eye fell, upon opening a volume of Homer or Virgil, or a passage drawn from an urn which several were deposited, as indicating future events, or the proper course to be pursued. In later times…
SOTHIAC; SOTHIC a.
Of or pertaining to Sothis, the Egyptian name for the Dog Star; taking its name from the Dog Star; canicular. Sothiac, or Sothic, year (Chronol.), the Egyptian year of 365 days and 6 hours, as distinguished from the Egyptian vague year, which contained 365 days. The Sothic period consists of 1,460 Sothic years, being e…
SPECIFIC a.
heat (Physics), the quantity of heat required to raise temperature of a body one degree, taking as the unit of measure the quantity required to raise the same weight of water from zero to one degree; thus, the specific heat of mercury is 0.033, that of water being 1.000. -- Specific inductive capacity (Physics), the…
STATUESQUE a.
Partaking of, or exemplifying, the characteristics of a statue; having the symmetry, or other excellence, of a statue artistically made; as, statuesquelimbs; a statuesque attitude. Their characters are mostly statuesque even in this respect, that they have no background. Hare.