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The presiding officer of a committee, or of a public or private meeting, or of any organized body.

The office of a chairman of a meeting or organized body.

To bite or chew impatiently. They began . . . irefully to champ upon the bit. Hooker.

), a very large Australian cucko (Scythrops Novæhollandiæ. -- Channel goose. (Zoöl.) See Gannet.

The confused, unorganized condition or mass of matter before the creation of distinct and order forms.

An organized branch of some society or fraternity as of the Freemasons. Robertson.

might not be chargeable to any of you. 2. Thess. iii. 8. For the sculptures, which are elegant, were very chargeable. Evelyn.

Brigands in bands, who, about 1793, pillaged, burned, and killed in parts of France; -- so called because they used to burn the feet of their victims to extort money.

One of the anterior pair of mouth organs, terminated by a pincherlike claw, in scorpions and allied Arachnida. They are homologous with the falcers of spiders, and probably with the mandibles of insects.

A term sometimes applied to the decomposition of organic substance into more simple bodies, by the use of chemical agents alone. Thudichum.

Synthesis of organic compounds by energy derived from chemical changes or reactions. Chemosynthesis of carbohydrates occurs in the nitrite bacteria through the oxidation of ammonia to nitrous acid, and in the nitrate bacteria through the conversion of nitrous into nitric acid. -- Chem`o*syn*thet"ic (#), a.…

The sensitiveness exhibited by small free-swimming organisms, as bacteria, zoöspores of algæ, etc., to chemical substances held in solution. They may be attracted (positive chemotaxis) or repelled (negative chemotaxis). -- Chem`o*tac"tic (#), a. -- Chem`o*tac"tic*al*ly, adv.

lding gas, steam, liguids, etc.; as, the steam chest of an engine; the wind chest of an organ. Bomb chest, See under Bomb. -- Chest of drawers, a case or movable frame containing drawers.

A band or organized company of singers, especially in church service. [Formerly written also quire.]

A treatise on the bile and bilary organs. Dunglison.

Pertaining to, or obtained from, the bile. Cholic acid (Chem.), a complex organic acid found as a natural constituent of taurocholic and glycocholic acids in the bile, and extracted as a resinous substance, convertible under the influence of ether into white crystals.

A group of fishes, characterized by cartilaginous fins and skeleton. It includes both ganoids (sturgeons, etc.) and selachians (sharks), but is now often restricted to the latter. [Written also Chondropterygia.]

A "country" or suffragan bishop, appointed in the ancient church by a diocesan bishop to exercise episcopal jurisdiction in a rural district.

The separation of a leaf or floral organ into two more parts.

The science which treats of the laws of distribution of living organisms over the earth's surface as to latitude, altitude, locality, etc. Its distribution or chorology. Huxley.