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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



1,872 words match “MEAN”

ENABLE v.
make able (to do, or to be, something); to confer sufficient power upon; to furnish with means, opportunities, and the like; to render competent for; to empower; to endow. Temperance gives Nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor. Addison.
ENCAUSTIC a.
Prepared by means of heat; burned in. Encaustic painting (Fine Arts), painting by means of wax with which the colors are combined, and which is afterwards fused with hot irons, thus fixing the colors. -- Encaustic tile (Fine Arts), an earthenware tile which has a decorative pattern and is not wholly of one color.…
ENCURTAIN v.
A noun suffix having much the same meaning as -ence, but more commonly signifying the quality or state; as, emergency, efficiency. See -ancy.
ENDOSCOPY n.
The art or process of examining by means of the endoscope.
ENGAGING a.
-- En*ga"ging*ness, n. Engaging and disengaging gear or machinery, that in which, or by means of which, one part is alternately brought into gear or out of gear with another part, as occasion may require.
ENGINE n.
machine tool. J. Whitworth. -- Engine turning (Fine Arts), a method of ornamentation by means of a rose engine.
ENGRAVE v.
To form or represent by means of incisions upon wood, stone, metal, or the like; as, to engrave an inscription.
ENIGMA n.
A dark, obscure, or inexplicable saying; a riddle; a statement, the hidden meaning of which is to be discovered or guessed. A custom was among the ancients of proposing an enigma at festivals. Pope.
ENTICEMENT n.
That which entices, or incites to evil; means of allurement; alluring object; as, an enticement to sin.
EPI- n.
A prefix, meaning upon, beside, among, on the outside, above, over. It becomes ep- before a vowel, as in epoch, and eph- before a Greek aspirate, as in ephemeral.
EQUAL a.
Bearing a suitable relation; of just proportion; having competent power, abilities, or means; adequate; as, he is not equal to the task. The Scots trusted not their own numbers as equal to fight with the English. Clarendon. It is not permitted to me to make my commendations equal to your merit. Dryden. Whose voice an e…
EQUATE v.
llowance or correction in as will reduce to a common standard of comparison; to reduce to mean time or motion; as, to equate payments; to equate lines of railroad for grades or curves; equated distances. Palgrave gives both scrolle and scrowe and equates both to F[rench] rolle. Skeat (Etymol. Dict. ). Equating for grad…
EQUATION n.
A quantity to be applied in computing the mean place or other element of a celestial body; that is, any one of the several quantities to be added to, or taken from, its position as calculated on the hypothesis of a mean uniform motion, in order to find its true position as resulting from its actual and unequal motion.…
EQUI- n.
A prefix, meaning equally; as, equidistant; equiangular.
EQUINOCTIAL a.
t of Libra. -- Equinoctial time (Astron.) reckoned in any year from the instant when the mean sun is at the mean vernal equinoctial point.
EQUIPOISE n.
f being equally balanced; -- said of moral, political, or social interests or forces. The means of preserving the equipoise and the tranquillity of the commonwealth. Burke. Our little lives are kept in equipoise By opposite attractions and desires. Longfellow.
EQUIVALENT a.
wer, effect, import, and the like; alike in significance and value; of the same import or meaning. For now to serve and to minister, servile and ministerial, are terms equivalent. South.
EQUIVOCAL n.
A word or expression capable of different meanings; an ambiguous term; an equivoque. In languages of great ductility, equivocals like that just referred to are rarely found. Fitzed. Hall.
EQUIVOCATE v.
cate is the work of duplicity. All that Garnet had to say for him was that he supposed he meant to equivocate. Bp. Stillingfleet.
ERGOT n.
and wheat. It is a powerful remedial agent, and also a dangerous poison, and is used as a means of hastening childbirth, and to arrest bleeding.
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