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The officer in a religious house who had the care of the infirmary. [Obs.]

The mechanism for closing the breech of a breech-loading firearm, in artillery consisting principally of the breechblock, obturator, and carrier ring.

A festering. [R.] Chalmers.

Food; nourishment. [Obs.]

See Germ.

ding the signification; of or pertaining to interpretation; exegetical; explanatory; as, hermeneutic theology, or the art of expounding the Scriptures; a hermeneutic phrase.

According to the principles of interpretation; as, a verse of Scripture was examined hermeneutically.

The science of interpretation and explanation; exegesis; esp., that branch of theology which defines the laws whereby the meaning of the Scriptures is to be ascertained. Schaff-Herzog Encyc.

Originally, a boundary stone dedicated to Hermes as the god of boundaries, and therefore bearing in some cases a head, or head and shoulders, placed upon a quadrangular pillar whose height is that of the body belonging to the head, sometimes having feet or other parts of the body sculptured upon it. These figures, thou…

Of, pertaining to, or taught by, Hermes Trismegistus; as, hermetic philosophy. Hence: Alchemical; chemic. "Delusions of the hermetic art." Burke. The alchemists, as the people were called who tried to make gold, considered themselves followers of Hermes, and often called themselves Hermetic philosophers. A. B. Buckley.…

In an hermetical manner; chemically. Boyle.

A kind of metamorphosis, in certain insects, in which the larva itself undergoes remarkable changes of form and structure during its growth.

, anything exceeding the ordinary standard. When a man rises beyond six foot, he is an hypermeter. Addison.

Having a redundant syllable; exceeding the common measure. Hypermetrical verse (Gr. & Lat. Pros.), a verse which contains a syllable more than the ordinary measure.

A condition of the eye in which, through shortness of the eyeball or fault of the refractive media, the rays of light come to a focus behind the retina; farsightedness; -- called also hyperopia. Cf. Emmetropia.

The act of imbittering; bitter feeling; embitterment.

The quality of being impermeable.

Not permeable; not permitting passage, as of a fluid. through its substance; impervious; impenetrable; as, India rubber is impermeable to water and to air. -- Im*per"me*a*ble*ness, n. -- Im*per"me*a*bly, adv.

Something done in the meantime; interlude. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

A flowing between. [Obs.] Bailey.