Search the Dictionary

four or more equal parts by perpendicular lines, and of two different tinctures disposed alternately.

repeated twinning, like that of the triclinic feldspar, producing fine parallel bands in alternately reversed positions.

surface composed of patches which are supposed to represent crutch heads; they are always alternately argent and azure, unless otherwise specially mentioned. Counter potent (Her.), a fur differing from potent in the arrangement of the patches.

(a log) into quarters; specif., to saw into quarters and then into boards, as by cutting alternately from each face of a quarter, to secure lumber that will warp relatively little or show the grain advantageously.

A stanza of four lines rhyming alternately. Dryden.

To move forward and backward alternately; to recur in vicissitude; to act interchangeably; to alternate. One brawny smith the puffing bellows plies, And draws and blows reciprocating air. Dryden. Reciprocating engine, a steam, air, or gas engine, etc., in which the piston moves back and forth; -- in distinction from a…

Having recurring flow and ebb; moving alternately. [Obs.] Drayton.

Armature winding in which the wire is wound round the outer and inner surfaces alternately of an annular or cylindrical core.

nce upon the skin, occurring in circumscribed patches of little or no elevation and often alternately fading and reviving; also, an acute specific disease which is characterized by an eruption of this character; -- called also rose rash. -- Ro*se"o*lous, a.

ey are seated upon the opposite ends of a plank which is balanced in the middle, and move alternately up and down.

To climb a mast, tree, rope, or the like, by embracing it alternately with the arms and legs, without help of steps, spurs, or the like; -- used with up; as, to shin up a mast. [Slang]

ing by sutures at either margin. The seeds are attached to both edges of the dissepiment, alternately upon each side of it.

dles. Dividing sinker, in knitting machines, a sinker between two jack sinkers and acting alternately with them. -- Jack sinker. See under Jack, n. -- Sinker bar. (a) In knitting machines, a bar to which one set of the sinkers is attached. (b) In deep well boring, a heavy bar forming a connection between the lifting…

Having the margin alternately curved inward and outward; having rounded lobes separated by rounded sinuses; sinuous; wavy.

ng valve, often used in steam engines for admitting steam to the piston and releasing it, alternately, having a cuplike cavity in its face, through which the exhaust steam passes. It is situated in the steam chest, and moved by the valve gear. It is sometimes called a D valve, -- a name which is also applied to a semic…

That alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless numbers. In ferns it is the leafy plant, in mosses the capsule. Cf. Oöphore.

To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam.

Applied to spokes when they are arranged alternately in two circles in the hub. See Straddle, v. i., and Straddle, v. t., 3. Knight.

To climb a tree, pole, or the like, by embracing it with the arms and legs alternately. See Shin. [Colloq.] At the top was placed a piece of money, as a prize for those who could swarm up and seize it. W. Coxe.

e insurmountable are passed. The track ascends by a series of zigzags, the engine running alternately forward and back, until the summit is reached. -- Switch board (Elec.), a collection of switches in one piece of apparatus, so arranged that a number of circuits may be connected or combined in any desired manner. --…