LACQUER n.
-lac in alcohol, often colored with gamboge, saffron, or the like; -- used for varnishing metals, papier-maché, and wood. The name is also given to varnishes made of other ingredients, esp. the tough, solid varnish of the Japanese, with which ornamental objects are made.
LADDER n.
A frame usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which are fastened cross strips or rounds forming steps. Some the engines play, And some, more bold, mount ladders to the fire. Dryden.
LANTHANUM n.
A rare element of the group of the earth metals, allied to aluminium. It occurs in certain rare minerals, as cerite, gadolinite, orthite, etc., and was so named from the difficulty of separating it from cerium, didymium, and other rare elements with which it is usually associated. Atomic weight 138.5. Symbol La. [Forme…
LAP n.
A piece of brass, lead, or other soft metal, used to hold a cutting or polishing powder in cutting glass, gems, and the like, or in polishing cutlery, etc. It is usually in the form of wheel or disk, which revolves on a vertical axis. Lap joint, a joint made by one layer, part, or piece, overlapping another, as in the…
LATH n.
ams of a building, for the purpose of supporting the tiles, plastering, etc. A corrugated metallic strip or plate is sometimes used. Lath brick, a long, slender brick, used in making the floor on which malt is placed in the drying kiln. Lath nail a slender nail for fastening laths.
LATTEN n.
Sheet tin; iron plate, covered with tin; also, any metal in thin sheets; as, gold latten. Black latten, brass in milled sheets, composed of copper and zinc, used by braziers, and for drawing into wire. -- Roll latten, latten polished on both sides ready for use. -- Shaven latten, a thinner kind than black latten. --…
LEAD n. 2 definitions
One of the elements, a heavy, pliable, inelastic metal, having a bright, bluish color, but easily tarnished. It is both malleable and ductile, though with little tenacity, and is used for tubes, sheets, bullets, etc. Its specific gravity is 11.37. It is easily fusible, forms alloys with other metals, and is an ingredie…
LEAF n.
Leaf lard, lard from leaf fat. See under Lard. -- Leaf louse (Zoöl.), an aphid. -- Leaf metal, metal in thin leaves, as gold, silver, or tin. -- Leaf miner (Zoöl.), any one of various small lepidopterous and dipterous insects, which, in the larval stages, burrow in and eat the parenchyma of leaves; as, the pear-tree…