Search the Dictionary

A kind of large. thin muffin or cake, light and spongy, and cooked on a griddle or spider.

roughout all the land. Ex. xi. 6. An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light; And with no language but a cry. Tennyson.

material of quartz, in crystallization transparent or nearly so, and either colorless or slightly tinged with gray, or the like; - - called also rock crystal. Ornamental vessels are made of it. Cf. Smoky quartz, Pebble; also Brazilian pebble, under Brazilian.

talline lens (Anat.), the capsular lenslike body in the eye, serving to focus the rays of light. It consists of rodlike cells derived from the external embryonic epithelium.

A large ornamental or shade tree of the genus Magnolia (M. acuminata), so called from a slight resemblance of its young fruit to a small cucumber. (b) An East Indian plant (Averrhoa Bilimbi) which produces the fruit known as bilimbi. -- Jamaica cucumber, Jerusalem cucumber, the prickly-fruited gherkin (Cucumis Anguri…

The state of being cultivated; result of cultivation; physical improvement; enlightenment and discipline acquired by mental and moral training; civilization; refinement in manners and taste. What the Greeks expressed by their humanitas, we less happily try to express by the more artificial word culture. J. C. Shairp. T…

o trouble. Why asks he what avails him not in fight, And would but cumber and retard his flight Dryden. Martha was cumbered about much serving. Luke x. 40. Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground Luke xiii. 7. The multiplying variety of arguments, especially frivolous ones, . . . but cumbers the memory. Locke.…

ing of an evening bell, originally a signal to the inhabitants to cover fires, extinguish lights, and retire to rest, -- instituted by William the Conqueror; also, the bell itself. He begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock. Shak. The village curfew, as it tolled profound. Campbell.

Poe. Abstruse investigations in recondite branches of learning or sciense often bring to light curious results. C. J. Smith. Curious arts, magic. [Obs.] Many . . . which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them. Acts xix. 19.

Murmuring; grumbling; -- sometimes applied to the rumbling produced by a slight attack of the gripes. [Scot.] Burns.

Moving about slightly. [R.] H. Bushnell.

Characterized by haste; hastily or superficially performed; slight; superficial; careless. Events far too important to be treated in a cursory manner. Hallam.

sm; personal discourtesy, as neglecting to recognize an acquaintance when meeting him; a slight. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, snapped his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed. W. Irving.

A small, light one-horse sleigh.

A light or unchaste woman. Sir W. Scott.

least two flat and transparent sides, used to hold a liquid sample to be analysed in the light path of a spectrometer.

A bicycle or tricycle, or other light velocipede. Calippic cycle, a period of 76 years, or four Metonic cycles; -- so called from Calippus, who proposed it as an improvement on the Metonic cycle. -- Cycle of eclipses, a priod of about 6,586 days, the time of revolution of the moon's node; -- called Saros by the Chalde…

A sight covering; a scarf. See Simar. Her body shaded with a light cymar. Dryden.

Having a wavy, floating light; opalescent; chatoyant.

To work in slight or superficial manner; to do in a small way; to tamper; to meddle. "Dabbling here and there with the text." Atterbury. During the ferst year at Dumfries, Burns for the ferst time began to dabble in politics. J. C. Shairp.