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hich the standing rigging is fastened. -- Chain pulley, a pulley with depressions in the periphery of its wheel, or projections from it, made to fit the links of a chain. -- Chain pumps. See in the Vocabulary. -- Chain rule (Arith.), a theorem for solving numerical problems by composition of ratios, or compound prop…

mon, and sugar in gum water, much used in diarrheal affection, esp. of infants. -- Chalk period. (Geol.) See Cretaceous period, under Cretaceous. -- Chalk pit, a pit in which chalk is dug. -- Drawing chalk. See Crayon, n., 1. -- French chalk, steatite or soapstone, a soft magnesian mineral. -- Red chalk, an indura…

A claim or demand. [Obs.] There must be no challenge of superiority. Collier.

Of superior quality and temper; -- applied to steel. [Obs.] Milton.

tonic scale. Four bells admit twenty-four changes in ringing. Holder. Change of life, the period in the life of a woman when menstruation and the capacity for conception cease, usually occurring between forty-five and fifty years of age. -- Change ringing, the continual production, without repetition, of changes on be…

An epoch at the close of the Canadian period of the American Lower Silurian system; -- so named from a township in Clinton Co., New York. See the Diagram under Geology.

A measure of grain equal to 0.7218 of an imperial quarter, or 5.95 Winchester bushels. [Russia]

The commencement; the first period. The childhood of our joy. Shak. Second childhood, the state of being feeble and incapable from old age.

A thousand; the aggregate of a thousand things; especially, a period of a thousand years. The world, then in the seventh chiliad, will be assumed up unto God. Sir. T. More.

A warm westerly wind from the country of the Chinooks, sometimes experienced on the slope of the Rocky Mountains, in Montana and the adjacent territory.

A tribe of Indians formerly inhabiting the northern and weastern shores of Lake Superior; -- called also Objibways.

Worthly of being chosen or preferred; select; superior; precious; valuable. My choicest hours of life are lost. Swift.

The science which treats of measuring time by regular divisions or periods, and which assigns to events or transactions their proper dates. If history without chronology is dark and confused, chronology without history is dry and insipid. A. Holmes.

The art of measuring time; the measuring of time by periods or divisions.

yellow to green color. It is common in certain volcanic rocks; -- called also olivine and peridot. Sometimes used as a gem. The name was also early used for yellow varieties of tourmaline and topaz.

A superintendent or keeper of a church's valuables; a churchwarden. [Obs.] Bailey.

The act of moving or revolving around, or as in a circle or orbit; a revolution; as, the periodical circuit of the earth round the sun. Watts.

The line that goes round or encompasses a circular figure; a periphery. Millon.

rds to express an idea that might be expressed by few; indirect or roundabout language; a periphrese. the plain Billingagate way of calling names . . . would save abundance of time lost by circumlocution. Swift. Circumlocution office, a term of riducle for a governmental office where business is delayed by passing thro…

Relating to, or consisting of, circumlocutions; periphrastic; circuitous.