Search the Dictionary

A figure which consists in repeating the same word in a different sense; as, Learn some craft when young, that when old you may live without craft.

A figure which consists in answering the charge of an adversary, by a counter charge.

Having the figure of, or resemblance to, a man; as, an anthromorphous plant. "Anthromorphous apes." Darwin.

An odd imagery, device, or tracery; a fantastic figure. Woven with antics and wild imagery. Spenser.

A figure in which the same words or ideas are repeated in transposed order.

An Egyptian deity, the conductor of departed spirits, represented by a human figure with the head of a dog or fox.

A figure by which a speaker formally declines to take notice of a favorable point, but in such a manner as to produce the effect desired. [For example, see Mark Antony's oration. Shak., Julius Cæsar, iii. 2.]

A figure in which the speaker professes to be at a loss what course to pursue, where to begin to end, what to say, etc.

A figure of speech in which the speaker breaks off suddenly, as if unwilling or unable to state what was in his mind; as, "I declare to you that his conduct -- but I can not speak of that, here."

entury. -- Apostle spoon (Antiq.), a spoon of silver, with the handle terminating in the figure of an apostle. One or more were offered by sponsors at baptism as a present to the godchild. B. Jonson.

A figure of speech by which the orator or writer suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present; as, Milton's apostrophe to Light at the beginning of the third book of "Paradise Lost."

To use the rhetorical figure called apostrophe.

To seem; to have a certain semblance; to look. They disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Matt. vi. 16.

n low relief. It consists of a pattern in which plants, fruits, foliage, etc., as well as figures of men and animals, real or imaginary, are fantastically interlaced or put together.

Of or pertaining to Arabia or the Arabians. Arabic numerals or figures, the nine digits, 1, 2, 3, etc., and the cipher 0. -- Gum arabic. See under Gum.

The appearance or figure of a tree or plant, as in minerals or fossils; a dendrite.

The superficial contents of any figure; the surface included within any given lines; superficial extent; as, the area of a square or a triangle.

A constellation west of Taurus, drawn on the celestial globe in the figure of a ram.

The science of numbers; the art of computation by figures.

Belonging to armor, or to the heraldic arms or escutcheon of a family. Figures with armorial signs of race and birth. Wordsworth. Armorial bearings. See Arms, 4.