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Smallness; meagerness; slenderness; fineness, thinness. [R.] Paley.

A beginning; an introduction; especially, the introductory part of a discourse or written composition, which prepares the audience for the main subject; the opening part of an oration. "The exordium of repentance." Jer. Taylor. "Long prefaces and exordiums. " Addison.

The eversion or turning out of any organ, or of its inner surface; as, exstrophy of the eyelid or of the bladder.

te, under urgent necessity, or with scanty or unsuitable materials; as, to extemporize a dinner, a costume, etc. Themistocles . . . was of all men the best able to extemporize the right thing to be done. Jowett (Thucyd. ). Pitt, of whom it was said that he could extemporize a Queen's speech Lord Campbell.…

To become thinner; to make excuses; to advance palliating considerations. Burke.

reated. -- To have an eye to, to pay particular attention to; to watch. "Have an eye to Cinna." Shak. -- To keep an eye on, to watch. -- To set the eyes on, to see; to have a sight of. -- In the eye of the wind (Naut.), in a direction opposed to the wind; as, a ship sails in the eye of the wind.

the family Tubinid, used to remove a foreign sub stance from the eye. It is rut into the inner corner of the eye under the lid, and allowed to work its way out at the outer corner, bringing with the substance.

nventional, in distinction from a natural, standard or rule; not natural; as, factitious cinnabar or jewels; a factitious taste. -- Fac-ti"tious*ly, adv. -- Fac*ti"tious-ness, n. He acquires a factitious propensity, he forms an incorrigible habit, of desultory reading. De Quincey.

captured; to be destroyed. Heaven and earth will witness, If Rome must fall, that we are innocent. Addison.

or false appearance; deceitfulness; that which misleads the eye or the mind; deception. Winning by conquest what the first man lost, By fallacy surprised. Milton.

A part which acts by falling, as a stamp in a fulling mill, or the device in a spinning machine to arrest motion when a thread breaks.

An instrument for winnowing grain, by moving which the grain is tossed and agitated, and the chaff is separated and blown away.

re played in sequences upon the table, the one who first gets rid of his cards being the winner.

Something new-fashioned; a foolish innovation; a gewgaw; a trifling ornament.

mong persons of good breeding; as, to dress, dance, sing, ride, etc., in the fashion. The innocent diversions in fashion. Locke. As now existing, fashion is a form of social regulation analogous to constitutional government as a form of political regulation. H. Spencer.

the course of human life. They are represented, one as holding the distaff, a second as spinning, and the third as cutting off the thread.

rinoid fish of the Mississippi valley (Pimephales promelas); -- called also black-headed minnow.

Having a feather-edge; also, having one edge thinner than the other, as a board; -- in the United States, said only of stuff one edge of which is made as thin as practicable.

or wrought into a compact substance by rolling and pressure, with lees or size, without spinning or weaving. It were a delicate stratagem to shoe A troop of horse with felt. Shak .

Corrupted; decayed; moldy. See Vinnewed. [Obs.] Dr. Favour.