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That which obstructs or impedes; an obstacle; an impediment; a hindrance. A popular assembly free from obstruction. Swift.

Tending to obstruct; presenting obstacles; hindering; causing impediment. -- Ob*struct"ive*ly, adv.

To hold, or fill, the dimensions of; to take up the room or space of; to cover or fill; as, the camp occupies five acres of ground. Sir J. Herschel.

A suffix used to form diminutives; as, bullock, hillock.

A horizontal ledge on the face of a wall, formed by a diminution of its thickness, or by the weathering or upper surface of a part built out from it; -- called also set-off.

To produce, as an effect; to cause. The same cause would operate a diminution of the value of stock. A. Hamilton.

regular annulations, and usually with minute scales imbedded in the skin. The limbs are rudimentary or wanting. It includes the cæcilians. Called also Gymnophiona and Ophidobatrachia.

A wind instrument containing numerous pipes of various dimensions and kinds, which are filled with wind from a bellows, and played upon by means of keys similar to those of a piano, and sometimes by foot keys or pedals; -- formerly used in the plural, each pipe being considired an organ. The deep, majestic, solemn orga…

To hinder or stop, as by an overslaugh or an impediment; as, to overslaugh a bill in a legislative body; to overslaugh a military officer, that is, to hinder his promotion or employment. [Local Cant, U. S.]

The rudiment of a seed. It grows from a placenta, and consists of a soft nucleus within two delicate coatings. The attached base of the ovule is the hilum, the coatings are united with the nucleus at the chalaza, and their minute orifice is the foramen.

Not bright or brilliant; of a faint luster or hue; dim; as, the pale light of the moon. The night, methinks, is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler. Shak.

In a pale manner; dimly; wanly; not freshly or ruddily. Thackeray.

A superior kind of dimity made in India, -- used for bed coverings. [Written also palampore, palampoor, etc.] De Colange.

A diminutive or secondary palea; a lodicule.

Pale; wanting color; dim. [Poetic] Shak. Whittier.

fruit of Capsicum annuum or various other species of pepper; also, the mildly pungent condiment prepared from it.

Situated on either side of the notochord; -- applied especially to the cartilaginous rudiments of the skull on each side of the anterior part of the notochord. -- n.

Fig.: To diminish the bulk of; to reduce; to lessen. The king began to pare a little the privilege of clergy. Bacon.

An instrument for measuring the dimensions of the pelvis. Coxe.

A well-known, pungently aromatic condiment, the dried berry, either whole or powdered, of the Piper nigrum.