COMPASS n.
needles permanently attached to a card, which moves freely upon a pivot, and is read with reference to a mark on the box representing the ship's head. The card is divided into thirty-two points, called also rhumbs, and the glass-covered box or bowl containing it is suspended in gimbals within the binnacle, in order to…
CONCRETE a.
three men, five days, etc., as distinguished from an abstract number, or one used without reference to a particular object. -- Concrete quantity, a physical object or a collection of such objects. Davies & Peck. -- Concrete science, a physical science, one having as its subject of knowledge concrete things instead of…
CONJUGATE a.
and having reciprocal properties; -- frequently used in pure and applied mathematics with reference to two quantities, points, lines, axes, curves, etc. Conjugate axis of a hyperbola (Math.), the line through the center of the curve, perpendicular to the line through the two foci. -- Conjugate diameters (Conic Section…
COORDINATE n.
Lines, or other elements of reference, by means of which the position of any point, as of a curve, is defined with respect to certain fixed lines, or planes, called coördinate axes and coördinate planes. See Abscissa.
CORRELATION n.
energy, the relation to one another of different forms of energy; -- usually having some reference to the principle of conservation of energy. See Conservation of energy, under Conservation. -- Correlation of forces, the relation between the forces which matter, endowed with various forms of energy, may exert.…
CROSS a.
rue or principal lode. -- Cross purpose. See Cross-purpose, in the Vocabulary. -- Cross reference, a reference made from one part of a book or register to another part, where the same or an allied subject is treated of. -- Cross sea (Naut.), a chopping sea, in which the waves run in contrary directions. -- Cross st…
CYCLE n.
n Roman and ecclesiastical chronology, not founded on any astronomical period, but having reference to certain judicial acts which took place at stated epochs under the Greek emperors. -- Cycle of the moon, or Metonic cycle, a period of 19 years, after the lapse of which the new and full moon returns to the same day o…