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fastening together or interlacing; a closing of one thing upon another; a state of being fixed or immovable. Albemarle Street closed by a lock of carriages. De Quincey.

Unbound; untied; unsewed; not attached, fastened, fixed, or confined; as, the loose sheets of a book. Her hair, nor loose, nor tied in formal plat. Shak.

To make loose; to free from tightness, tension, firmness, or fixedness; to make less dense or compact; as, to loosen a string, or a knot; to loosen a rock in the earth. After a year's rooting, then shaking doth the tree good by loosening of the earth. Bacon.

r of the English crown, who had the custody of the king's great seal, with authority to affix it to public documents. The office is now merged in that of the chancellor. -- Lord lieutenant, a representative of British royalty: the lord lieutenant of Ireland being the representative of royalty there, and exercising sup…

A suffix forming adjectives and adverbs, and denoting likeness or resemblance.

A prefix, in names of Scotch origin, signifying son.

y receive, by any means, the properties of the loadstone, and which then, when suspended, fixes itself in the direction of a magnetic meridian.

A prefix meaning pertaining to, produced by, or in some way connected with, magnetism.

. A prefix in composition denoting ill,or evil, F. male, adv., fr. malus, bad, ill. In some words it has the form male-, as in malediction, malevolent. See Malice.

A fixed object serving for guidance, as of a ship, a traveler, a surveyor, etc.; as, a seamark, a landmark.

l, one who lays stress on a rigid adherence to the details of discipline, or to forms and fixed methods. [Hence, the word is commonly employed in a depreciatory sense.]

rickwork about, under, in, over, etc.; to construct by masons; -- with a prepositional suffix; as, to mason up a well or terrace; to mason in a kettle or boiler.

In Mohammedan countries, a fixed seat, common in dwellings and in public places.

Arrival of the time fixed for payment; a becoming due; termination of the period a note, etc., has to run.

A standard of dimension; a fixed unit of quantity or extent; an extent or quantity in the fractions or multiples of which anything is estimated and stated; hence, a rule by which anything is adjusted or judged.

To contemplate; to keep the mind fixed upon; to study. "Blessed is the man that doth meditate good things." Ecclus. xiv. 20.

embrance; commemorative; as, a memorial building. There high in air, memorial of my name, Fix the smooth oar, and bid me live to fame. Pope.

A suffix denoting that which does a thing; an act or process; the result of an act or process; state or condition; as, aliment, that which nourishes, ornament, increment; fragment, piece broken, segment; abridgment, act of abridging, imprisonment, movement, adjournment; amazement, state of being amazed, astonishment.…

ality; spirit; mutability; fickleness. [Obs.] He was so full of mercury that he could not fix long in any friendship, or to any design. Bp. Burnet.

A prefix meaning between, with, after, behind, over, about, reversely; as, metachronism, the error of placing after the correct time; metaphor, lit., a carrying over; metathesis, a placing reversely.