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ent, as when the seed develops the root and the stem, the initial stem develops the leaf, branches, and flower buds; or in animal life, when the germ evolves the digestive and other organs and members, or when the animals as they advance in organization acquire special organs for specific purposes.

rial which, in the process of catalysis, has diffused or passed through the separating membrane.

Capable of passing through animal membranes by osmosis.

The act of passing by osmosis through animal membranes, as in the distribution of poisons, gases, etc., through the body. Unlike absorption, diffusion may go on after death, that is, after the blood ceases to circulate.

or lover of the fine arts; popularly, an amateur; especially, one who follows an art or a branch of knowledge, desultorily, or for amusement only.

An order of lamellibranchiate mollusks having an anterior and posterior adductor muscle, as the common clam. See Bivalve.

d or taught by Diophantus, the Greek writer on algebra. Diophantine analysis (Alg.), that branch of indeterminate analysis which has for its object the discovery of rational values that satisfy given equations containing squares or cubes; as, for example, to find values of x and y which make x2 + y2 an exact square.…

sease in which the air passages, and especially the throat, become coated with a false membrane, produced by the solidification of an inflammatory exudation. Cf. Group.

A sinker attached to a fishing line; also, a line having several branches, each with such a sinker, used in deep-sea fishing. [Local, U. S.]

A genus of Branchiopoda, having a disklike shell, attached by one valve, which is perforated by the peduncle.

The subject matter of instruction; a branch of knowledge. Bp. Wilkins.

To free from encumbrance, or from anything which clogs, impedes, or obstructs; to disburden. Owen. I have disencumbered myself from rhyme. Dryden.

; to extract by distillation, as spirits, essential oil, etc.; to rectify; as, to distill brandy from wine; to distill alcoholic spirits from grain; to distill essential oils from flowers, etc.; to distill fresh water from sea water. "Distilling odors on me." Tennyson.

To part into two branches; to become bifid; to fork.

A separation into two parts or branches; a forking; a divergence.

A blind tube branching out of a longer one.

That divines; for divining. Divining rod, a rod, commonly of witch hazel, with forked branches, used by those who pretend to discover water or metals under ground.

A teacher; one skilled in a profession, or branch of knowledge learned man. [Obs.] One of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Macciavel. Bacon.

teacher, a school, or a sect; a principle or position, or the body of principles, in any branch of knowledge; any tenet or dogma; a principle of faith; as, the doctrine of atoms; the doctrine of chances. "The doctrine of gravitation." I. Watts. Articles of faith and doctrine. Hooker. The Monroe doctrine (Politics), a…

A genus of nudibranchiate mollusks having a wreath of branchiæ on the back.