Search the Dictionary

productions or writings upon a given subject, or in reference to a particular science or branch of knowledge, or of a given country or period; as, the literature of Biblical criticism; the literature of chemistry.

A genus of small pectinibranch mollusks, having thick spiral shells, abundant between tides on nearly all rocky seacoasts. They feed on seaweeds. The common periwinkle is a well-known example. See Periwinkle.

That branch of the military art which embraces the details of moving and supplying armies. The meaning of the word is by some writers extended to include strategy. H. L. Scott.

To cut off as the top or extreme part of anything; to shoas, to lop a tree or its branches. "With branches lopped, in wood or mountain felled." Milton. Expunge the whole, or lop the excrescent parts. Pope.

A cutting off, as of branches; that which is cut off; leavings. The loppings made from that stock whilst it stood. Burke.

Any small crustacean parasitic on fishes. See Branchiura, and Ichthvophthira.

Of or pertaining to the loins and sacrum; as, the lumbosacral nerve, a branch of one of the lumber nerves which passes over the sacrum.

ing, to the Lycopodiaceæ, an order of cryptogamous plants (called also club mosses) with branching stems, and small, crowded, one-nerved, and usually pointed leaves.

opical seas. It includes than one hundred and fifty species, most of which are elegantly branched. -- Mad`re*po"ral, a.

ic civil officer; a public civil officer invested with the executive government, or some branch of it. "All Christian rulers and magistrates." Book of Com. Prayer. Of magistrates some also are supreme, in whom the sovereign power of the state resides; others are subordinate. Blackstone.

That branch of science which treats of the development of electricity by the action of magnets; -- the counterpart of electro- magnetism.

That branch of zoölogical science which relates to the crustaceans; -- called also carcinology.

the kidney. Malpighian corpuscles of the spleen, masses of adenoid tissue connected with branches of the splenic artery.

That branch of medical science which treats of the nature and properties of all the substances that are employed for the cure of diseases.

of Spiræa (S. hypericifolia) with many clusters of small white flowers along the slender branches. -- May apple (Bot.), the fruit of an American plant (Podophyllum peltatum). Also, the plant itself (popularly called mandrake), which has two lobed leaves, and bears a single egg-shaped fruit at the forking. The root and…

That science, or branch of applied mathematics, which treats of the action of forces on bodies.

That branch of science which treats of moving machines.

A soft tissue, occupying the center of the stem or branch of a plant; pith. Medulla oblongata. Etym: [L., oblong medulla] (Anat.), the posterior part of the brain connected with the spinal cord. It includes all the hindbrain except the cerebellum and pons, and from it a large part of the cranial nerves arise. It contro…

One of a family of fresh-water pectinibranchiate mollusks, having a turret-shaped shell.

A written representation of facts, addressed to the government, or to some branch of it, or to a society, etc., -- often accompanied with a petition.