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A strip of canvas, sewn upon a sail so that a batten or a light spar can placed in the interspace.

um; to be balanced or suspended; hence, to be in suspense or doubt. The slender, graceful spars Poise aloft in air. Longfellow.

ties, and are used in medicine. The young shoots are sometimes eaten as a substitute for asparagus, and the berries are said to be used in Europe to color wine.

A colorless transparent mineral, resembling quartz, occurring with castor or castorite on the island of Elba. It is a silicate of alumina and cæsia. Called also pollux.

inative. Polysynthetic twinning (Min.), repeated twinning, like that of the triclinic feldspar, producing fine parallel bands in alternately reversed positions.

y; dull; wanting; lightless or spirit; as, a ponderous style; a ponderous joke. Ponderous spar (Min.), heavy spar, or barytes. See Barite.

A name for several East Indian, or their wood, used for the masts and spars of vessels, as Calophyllum angustifolium, C. inophullum, and Sterculia foetida; -- called also peon.

e body is inflated. See Diodon, and Globefish. -- Porcupine grass (Bot.), a grass (Stipa spartea) with grains bearing a stout twisted awn, which, by coiling and uncoiling through changes in moisture, propels the sharp-pointed and barbellate grain into the wool and flesh of sheep. It is found from Illinois westward. Se…

embling, porphyry, that is, characterized by the presence of distinct crystals, as of feldspar, quartz, or augite, in a relatively fine-grained base, often aphanitic or cryptocrystalline.

consisting of a fine-grained base (usually feldspathic) through which crystals, as of feldspar or quartz, are disseminated. There are red, purple, and green varieties, which are highly esteemed as marbles. Porphyry shell (Zoöl.), a handsome marine gastropod shell (Oliva porphyria), having a dark red or brown polished s…

; hence, a way of entrance or exit, especially one that is grand and imposing. Thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone. Milton. From out the fiery portal of the east. Shak.

opposed to negative crystal, or one in which this characteristic is reversed, as Iceland spar, tourmaline, etc. -- Positive degree (Gram.), that state of an adjective or adverb which denotes simple quality, without comparison or relation to increase or diminution; as, wise, noble. -- Positive electricity (Elec), the…

erers, lace makers, etc. Pounce box, a box for sprinkling pounce. -- Pounce paper, a transparent paper for tracing.

Easily crumbling to pieces; friable; loose; as, a powdery spar.

nced; promotion. Neither royal blandishments nor promises of valuable preferment had been spared. Macaulay.

a specimen. (c) Something prepared for use in cookery. I wish the chemists had been more sparing who magnify their preparations. Sir T. Browne. In the preparations of cookery, the most volatile parts of vegetables are destroyed. Arbuthnot.

To cause to prefer; to incline; to decide. [Obs.] The desire to spare Christian blood preponderates him for peace. Fuller.

The quality or state of being pretty; -- used sometimes in a disparaging sense. A style . . . without sententious pretension or antithetical prettiness. Jeffrey.

To take (a copy, a positive picture, etc.), from a negative, a transparent drawing, or the like, by the action of light upon a sensitized surface. Printed goods, textile fabrics printed in patterns, especially cotton cloths, or calicoes.

A transparent body, with usually three rectangular plane faces or sides, and two equal and parallel triangular ends or bases; -- used in experiments on refraction, dispersion, etc.