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A paragraph describing something wonderful, used to fill out a newspaper column; -- an allusion to the miracle of Balaam's ass speaking. Numb. xxii. 30. [Cant] Balaam basket or box (Print.), the receptacle for rejected articles. Blackw. Mag.

nce thermometer, a thermometer mounted as a balance so that the movement of the mercurial column changes the indication of the tube. With the aid of electrical or mechanical devices adapted to it, it is used for the automatic regulation of the temperature of rooms warmed artificially, and as a fire alarm. -- Balance o…

A structure in form of a canopy, sometimes supported by columns, and sometimes suspended from the roof or projecting from the wall; generally placed over an altar; as, the baldachin in St. Peter's.

A small band or fillet; any little band or flat molding, compassing a column, like a ring. Gwilt.

tube about 34 inches long with mercury and inverting it in a cup containing mercury. The column of mercury in the tube descends until balanced by the weight of the atmosphere, and its rise or fall under varying conditions is a measure of the change in the atmospheric pressure. At the sea level its ordinary height is a…

ass or silver bulb. In a later variety, called the liquid barretter, wire is replace by a column of liquid in a very fine capillary tube.

In the form of basalt; columnar.

The lower part of a wall, pier, or column, when treated as a separate feature, usually in projection, or especially ornamented.

The pedestal of a column, pillar, or statue. [Obs.] If no basis bear my rising name. Pope.

That part of the capital of a column included between the abacus and neck molding; also used for the naked core of nearly cylindrical shape, assumed to exist within the leafage of a capital.

The exhaust steam from and engine, driving a column of air out of a boiler chimney, and thus creating an intense draught through the fire; also, any draught produced by the blast.

The whale; -- so called by seamen, from the circumstance of its spouting up a column of water.

One of the shafts of a clustered column. [Written also bowtel, boltel, boultell, etc.]

A gas fixture or lamp holder projecting from the face of a wall, column, or the like. Bracket light, a gas fixture or a lamp attached to a wall, column, etc.

ich, when united in a bundle, no strength could bend. Goldsmith. Bundle pillar (Arch.), a column or pier, with others of small dimensions attached to it. Weale.

he head, shoulders, and breast. Ambition sighed: she found it vain to trust The faithless column, and the crumbling bust. Pope.

A molding, shaft of a column, or any other member of convex, rounded section, made to resemble the spiral twist of a rope; -- called also cable molding. Bower cable, the cable belonging to the bower anchor. -- Cable road, a railway on which the cars are moved by a continuously running endless rope operated by a statio…

The decoration of a fluted shaft of a column or of a pilaster with reeds, or rounded moldings, which seem to be laid in the hollows of the fluting. These are limited in length to about one third of the height of the shaft.

The diameter of round or cylindrical body, as of a bullet or column.

Having angles; as, a six canted bolt head; a canted window. Canted column (Arch.), a column polygonal in plan.