Search the Dictionary

A medicinal agent designed for administration in the form of inhaled vapor. Brit. Pharm. Vapor bath. (a) A bath in vapor; the application of vapor to the body, or part of it, in a close place; also, the place itself. (b) (Chem.) A small metallic drying oven, usually of copper, for drying and heating filter papers, prec…

ion of a theme or melody with fanciful embellishments or modifications, in time, tune, or harmony, or sometimes change of key; the presentation of a musical thought in new and varied aspects, yet so that the essential features of the original shall still preserve their identity.

Harm; mischief. [Obs.] Shak. What a vengeance, or What the vengeance, what! -- emphatically. [Obs.] "But what a vengeance makes thee fly!" Hudibras. "What the vengeance! Could he not speak 'em fair" Shak. -- With a vengeance, with great violence; as, to strike with a vengeance. [Colloq.]

A vibrating reed for transmitting or receiving pulsating currents in a harmonic telegraph system. (3)

standard, implying a defect of natural character, or the result of training and habits; a harmful custom; immorality; depravity; wickedness; as, a life of vice; the vice of intemperance. I do confess the vices of my blood. Shak. Ungoverned appetite . . . a brutish vice. Milton. When vice prevails, and impious men bear…

Wine, --chiefly used in Pharmacy in the name of solutions of some medicinal substance in wine; as: vina medicata, medicated wines; vinum opii, wine of opium.

ing a viper. Viperine snake. (Zoöl.) (a) Any venomous snake of the family Viperidæ. (b) A harmless snake resembling a viper in form or color, esp. Tropidonotus viperinus, a small European species which resembles the viper in color.

without efficacy or operating qualities; powerless. Virtueless she wished all herbs and charms. Fairfax.

zzling streaks the vivid lightnings play. Cowper. Arts which present, with all the vivid charms of painting, the human face and human form divine. Bp. Hobart.

without sin. Bk. of Com. Prayer. Vouchsafe, illustrious Ormond, to behold What power the charms of beauty had of old. Dryden.

eir minstrelsy, breaks upon the mild watches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony. W. Irving. To lay wait, to prepare an ambuscade. -- To lie in wait. See under 4th Lie.

To make secure; to give assurance against harm; to guarantee safety to; to give authority or power to do, or forbear to do, anything by which the person authorized is secured, or saved harmless, from any loss or damage by his action. That show I first my body to warrant. Chaucer. I'll warrant him from drowning. Shak. I…

A solution in water of a gaseous or readily volatile substance; as, ammonia water. U. S. Pharm.

The common, harmless American water snake (Tropidonotus sipedon). See Illust. under Water Snake.

led state; to vacillate. [Obs.] He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm. Shak.

A spell or charm. [Obs. or Scot.] Sir W. Scott.

One whose intention is good. "Well-meaners think no harm." Dryden.

Spot; blemish; harm; hurt. [Obs.] Wyclif. Withouten wem of you, through foul and fair. Chaucer.

ivory. [Obs.] -- Whale shark. (Zoöl.) (a) The basking, or liver, shark. (b) A very large harmless shark (Rhinodon typicus) native of the Indian Ocean. It sometimes becomes sixty feet long. -- Whale shot, the name formerly given to spermaceti. -- Whale's tongue (Zoöl.), a balanoglossus.

s of what are left before they see their whaleboats. Cooper. What followed was in perfect harmony with this beginning. Macaulay. I know well . . . how little you will be disposed to criticise what comes to you from me. J. H. Newman.