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Instructive discourse. [Obs.] Spenser.

angle with every meridian; the rhumb line. It is the line on which a ship sails when her course is always in the direction of one and the same point of the compass.

a line or point in the compass case indicating the head of the ship, and consequently the course which the ship is steering.

event, good or ill, affecting one's interests or happiness, and which is deemed casual; a course or series of such events regarded as occurring by chance; chance; hap; fate; fortune; often, one's habitual or characteristic fortune; as, good, bad, ill, or hard luck. Luck is often used for good luck; as, luck is better t…

The quality of being magniloquent; pompous discourse; grandiloquence.

Speaking pompously; using swelling discourse; bombastic; tumid in style; grandiloquent. -- Mag*nil"o*quent*ly, adv.

A man who has not had sexual intercourse. [Obs.] Christ was a maid and shapen as a man. Chaucer.

An unmarried woman; a girl or woman who has not experienced sexual intercourse; a virgin; a maid. She employed the residue of her life to repairing of highways, building of bridges, and endowing of maidens. Carew. A maiden of our century, yet most meek. Tennyson.

cut margin on the face of hammer-dressed ashlar, adjacent to the joints. -- Margin of a course (Arch.), that part of a course, as of slates or shingles, which is not covered by the course immediately above it. See 2d Gauge.

A vain, unprofitable discourse or inquiry. [R.]

eighty character; not insubstantial; of cinsequence; not be dispensed with; important. Discourse, which was always material, never trifling. Evelyn. I shall, in the account of simple ideas, set down only such as are most material to our present purpose. Locke.

A winding, crooked, or involved course; as, the meanders of the veins and arteries. Sir M. Hale. While lingering rivers in meanders glide. Sir R. Blackmore.

A step or definite part of a progressive course or policy; a means to an end; an act designed for the accomplishment of an object; as, political measures; prudent measures; an inefficient measure. His majesty found what wrong measures he had taken in the conferring that trust, and lamented his error. Clarendon.…

A part of a discourse or of a period or sentence; a clause; a part of a verse.

y; belonging to, or passing through, the highest point attained by the sun in his diurnal course. "Meridian hour." Milton. Tables ... to find the altitude meridian. Chaucer.

try what mettle his heart is made of. South. Gentlemen of brave mettle. Shak. The winged courser, like a generous horse, Shows most true mettle when you check his course. Pope. To put one one's mettle, to cause or incite one to use one's best efforts.

The middle of the way or distance; a middle way or course. Shak. Paths indirect, or in the midway faint. Milton.

A dam or mound to obstruct a water course, and raise the water to a height sufficient to turn a mill wheel.

Specifically: An event or effect contrary to the established constitution and course of things, or a deviation from the known laws of nature; a supernatural event, or one transcending the ordinary laws by which the universe is governed. They considered not the miracle of the loaves. Mark vi. 52.

A course of extraordinary sermons and services at a particular place and time for the special purpose of quickening the faith and zeal participants, and of converting unbelievers. Addis & Arnold.