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Belonging to the natural or essential constitution; peculiar; not common; particular; as, every animal has his proper instincts and appetites. Those high and peculiar attributes . . . which constitute our proper humanity. Coleridge.

roper to anything; a peculiar quality of a thing; that which is inherent in a subject, or naturally essential to it; an attribute; as, sweetness is a property of sugar. Property is correctly a synonym for peculiar quality; but it is frequently used as coextensive with quality in general. Sir W. Hamilton.…

oportional scale, a scale on which are marked parts proportional to the logarithms of the natural numbers; a logarithmic scale. -- Proportional scales, compasses, dividers, etc. (Draughting), instruments used in making copies of drawings, or drawings of objects, on an enlarged or reduced scale.

A latent, not an exhausted, state of the vital energies; great oppression of natural strength and vigor.

t immediately preceding or following. "Proximate ancestors." J. S. Harford. The proximate natural causes of it [the deluge]. T. Burnet. Proximate analysis (Chem.), an analysis which determines the proximate principles of any substance, as contrasted with an ultimate analysis. -- Proximate cause. (a) A cause which imme…

Genesis through an internal force, as opposed to natural selection.

Punishing; tending to punishment; punitive. God . . . may make moral evil, as well as natural, at the same time both prudential and punitory. A. Tucker.

2, of which two varieties are known, a and g. g-pyrone is the parent substance of several natural yellow dyestuffs.

A mineral which is opaque in its natural state, but is said to change its color and become transparent by heat.

That which qualifies; any natural endowment, or any acquirement, which fits a person for a place, office, or employment, or which enables him to sustian any character with success; an enabling quality or circumstance; requisite capacity or possession. There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom, actu…

The fifth or last and highest essence or power in a natural body. See Ferment oils, under Ferment. [Obs.]

t so racy as his Scotch, is generally correct. H. Coleridge. The rich and racy humor of a natural converser fresh from the plow. Prof. Wilson.

o ranunculaceous plants. Ranal alliance (Bot.), a name proposed by Lindley for a group of natural orders, including Ranunculaceæ, Magnoliaceæ, Papaveraceæ, and others related to them.

The region within which a plant or animal naturally lives.

Of or pertaining to a natural order of plants (Ranunculaceæ), of which the buttercup is the type, and which includes also the virgin's bower, the monkshood, larkspur, anemone, meadow rue, and peony.

mass of hair, or similar material, used by women to support the puffs and rolls of their natural hair. [Local, U.S.]

eason; not physical; mental. Moral philosophy was his chiefest end; for the rational, the natural, and mathematics . . . were but simple pastimes in comparison of the other. Sir T. North.

Not altered from its natural state; not prepared by the action of heat; as, raw sienna; specifically, not cooked; not changed by heat to a state suitable for eating; not done; as, raw meat.

ther body by an opposite force; as, every body reacts on the body that impels it from its natural state.

called "catholic." Bp. Pearson. Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for that goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness. Tillotson.