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A figure of speech by which the orator or writer suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present; as, Milton's apostrophe to Light at the beginning of the third book of "Paradise Lost."

The perpendicular from the center to one of the sides of a regular polygon.

The remaining part of a whole tone after a smaller semitone has been deducted from it; a major semitone. [Obs.]

Appearing to the eye or mind (distinguished from, but not necessarily opposed to, true or real); seeming; as the apparent motion or diameter of the sun. To live on terms of civility, and even of apparent friendship. Macaulay. What Berkeley calls visible magnitude was by astronomers called apparent magnitude. Reid. Appa…

To make application for the removal of (a cause) from an inferior to a superior judge or court for a rehearing or review on account of alleged injustice or illegality in the trial below. We say, the cause was appealed from an inferior court.

A common name, distinction from a proper name. A common name, or appellative, stands for a whole class, genus, or species of beings, or for universal ideas. Thus, tree is the name of all plants of a particular class; plant and vegetable are names of things that grow out of the earth. A proper name, on the other hand, s…

dded to a book, but not necessarily essential to its completeness, and thus distinguished from supplement, which is intended to supply deficiencies and correct inaccuracies.

Of or pertaining to Appius. Appian Way, the great paved highway from ancient Rome trough Capua to Brundisium, now Brindisi, constructed partly by Appius Claudius, about 312 b. c.

ke, the sheets are so doubled (like the cover of an apple turnover) as to prevent any one from getting at his length between them. Halliwell, Conybeare. -- Apple-pie order, perfect order or arrangement. [Colloq.] Halliwell.

A passing tone preceding an essential tone, and borrowing the time it occupies from that; a short auxiliary or grace note one degree above or below the principal note unless it be of the same harmony; -- generally indicated by a note of smaller size, as in the illustration above. It forms no essential part of the harmo…

iol.), a mode of growth characteristic of non vascular tissues, in which nutritive matter from the blood is transformed on the surface of an organ into solid unorganized substance.

The time an apprentice is serving (sometimes seven years, as from the age of fourteen to twenty-one).

The act of ingrafting a sprig or shoot of one tree into another, without cutting it from the parent stock; -- called, also, inarching and grafting by approach.

The state or quality of being appropriate; peculiar fitness. Froude.

on of payment of money by a debtor to his creditor, to one of several debts which are due from the former to the latter. Chitty.

other stuff, worn on the fore part of the body, to keep the clothes clean, to defend them from injury, or as a covering. It is commonly tied at the waist by strings.

, having in the plan a polygonal or semicircular termination, and, most often, projecting from the east end. In early churches the Eastern apse was occupied by seats for the bishop and clergy. Hence:

ts of an orbit, as of a planet or satellite, which are at the greatest and least distance from the central body, corresponding to the aphelion and perihelion of a planet, or to the apogee and perigee of the moon. The more distant is called the higher apsis; the other, the lower apsis; and the line joining them, the lin…

eleventh sign in the zodiac, which the sun enters about the 20th of January; -- so called from the rains which prevail at that season in Italy and the East.

Made from, or by means of, water. An aqueous deposit. Dana. Aqueous extract, an extract obtained from a vegetable substance by steeping it in water. -- Aqueous humor (Anat.), one the humors of the eye; a limpid fluid, occupying the space between the crystalline lens and the cornea. (See Eye.) -- Aqueous rocks (Geol.),…