Search the Dictionary

To convert into vapor, as by the application of heat, whether naturally or artificially. Vaporizing surface. (Steam Boilers) See Evaporating surface, under Evaporate, v. t.

A blistering application or plaster; a vesicant; an epispastic.

A caustic application made up of equal parts of caustic potash and quicklime; -- called also Vienna caustic.

A certain function relating to a system of forces and their points of application, -- first used by Clausius in the investigation of problems in molecular physics.

roduct of the intensity of the force multiplied by the virtual velocity of its point of application; -- sometimes called virtual work. -- Virtual velocity (Mech.), a minute hypothetical displacement, assumed in analysis to facilitate the investigation of statical problems. With respect to any given force of a number o…

row or send out; to evacuate; to emit; to discharge; as, to void excrements. A watchful application of mind in voiding prejudices. Barrow. With shovel, like a fury, voided out The earth and scattered bones. J. Webster.

A medical preparation in a liquid form for external application; a lotion.

The treatment of wounds or ulcers by the application of water; also, a dressing saturated with water only, for application to a wound or an ulcer.

Fig.: Tissue; texture; complicated fabrication. The somber spirit of our forefathers, who wove their web of life with hardly a . . . thread of rose-color or gold. Hawthorne. Such has been the perplexing ingenuity of commentators that it is difficult to extricate the truth from the web of conjectures. W. Irving.…

ight in many an aëry wheel. Milton. A wheel within a wheel, or Wheels within wheels, a complication of circumstances, motives, etc. -- Balance wheel. See in the Vocab. -- Bevel wheel, Brake wheel, Cam wheel, Fifth wheel, Overshot wheel, Spinning wheel, etc. See under Bevel, Brake, etc. -- Core wheel. (Mach.) (a) A m…

rigor of our neighbors, who never take up an old idea without some extravagance in its application. Landor.

railroad men, in the army and navy, with provision for Indians and negroes, and a full duplication of all the various lines of oepration in the boys' departments.

The widening and duplication, triplication, etc., of spectral lines when the radiations emanate in a strong magnetic field, first observed in 1896 by P. Zeeman, a Dutch physicist, and regarded as an important confirmation of the electromagnetic theory of light.