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d fast; to constrict; to contract; to cause parts to draw together; to compress. Which contraction . . . astringeth the moistuBacon.

ting the parts of the body; that quality in medicines or other substances which causes contraction of the organic textures; as, the astringency of tannin.

A medicine or other substance that produces contraction in the soft organic textures, and checks discharges of blood, mucus, etc. External astringents are called styptics. Dunglison.

Degree of atomic attraction; equivalence; valence; also (a later use) the number of atoms in an elementary molecule. See Valence.

Attraction. [Obs.] Hudibras.

Capable of being attracted; subject to attraction. -- At*tract"a*ble*ness, n.

That which attracts or draws; an attraction; an allurement. Speaks nothing but attractives and invitation. South.

To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (as absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent). Spenser.

Secret slander; detraction. Backbiting, and bearing of false witness. Piers Plowman.

nce, with a poised beam, which indicates, by weights suspended from one arm, the mutual attraction of oppositely electrified surfaces. Knight. -- Balance fish. (Zoöl) See Hammerhead. -- Balance knife, a carving or table knife the handle of which overbalances the blade, and so keeps it from contact with the table. --…

A young lady of superior beauty and attractions; a handsome lady, or one who attracts notice in society; a fair lady.

An instrument, utensil, or machine, which, by alternate expansion and contraction, or by rise and fall of the top, draws in air through a valve and expels it through a tube for various purposes, as blowing fires, ventilating mines, or filling the pipes of an organ with wind. Bellows camera, in photography, a form of ca…

To confine, restrain, or hold by physical force or influence of any kind; as, attraction binds the planets to the sun; frost binds the earth, or the streams. He bindeth the floods from overflowing. Job xxviii. 11. Whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years. Luke xiii. 16.

Lineage; extraction; descent; sometimes, high birth; noble extraction. Elected without reference to birth, but solely for qualifications. Prescott.

Of mean extraction. [R.] Sir W. Scott.

which is usually strengthened by prominences called teeth. The shell is closed by the contraction of two transverse muscles attached to the inner surface, as in the clam, -- or by one, as in the oyster. See Mollusca.

zing torches. Sir W. Scott. Blazing star. (a) A comet. [Obs.] (b) A brilliant center of attraction. (c) (Bot.) A name given to several plants; as, to Chamælirium luteum of the Lily family; Liatris squarrosa; and Aletris farinosa, called also colicroot and star grass.

A unit of chemical attraction; as, oxygen has two bonds of affinity. It is often represented in graphic formulæ by a short line or dash. See Diagram of Benzene nucleus, and Valence. Arbitration bond. See under Arbitration. -- Bond crediter (Law), a creditor whose debt is secured by a bond. Blackstone. -- Bond debt (L…

) from the next higher denomination in order to add it to the next lower; -- a term of subtraction when the figure of the subtrahend is larger than the corresponding one of the minuend.

Descent; pedigree; extraction. [Obs.] Honest gentlemen, I know not your breeding. Shak. Close breeding, In and in breeding, breeding from a male and female from the same parentage. -- Cross breeding, breeding from a male and female of different lineage. -- Good breeding, politeness; genteel deportment.…