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A plant of the genus Heliotropium; heliotrope; -- so named because its flowers are supposed to turn toward the sun.

ines over the areas occupied by Peyer's glands. The virus, or contagion, of this fever is supposed to be a microscopic vegetable organism, or bacterium. Called also enteric fever. See Peyer's glands. -- Typhoid state, a condition common to many diseases, characterized by profound prostration and other symptoms resembl…

To recognize or hold as being or signifying; to suppose to mean; to interpret; to explain. The most learned interpreters understood the words of sin, and not of Abel. Locke.

n of brightness depending on the former, that of color on the latter. The undulations are supposed to take place, not in the direction of propagation, as in the air waves constituting sound, but transversely, and the various phenomena of refraction, polarization, interference, etc., are attributable to the different af…

horn (Med.), a substance formerly of great repute in medicine; -- named from having been supposed to be the bone or the horn of the unicorn. -- Unicorn fish, Unicorn whale (Zoöl.), the narwhal. -- Unicorn moth (Zoöl.), a notodontian moth (Coelodasys unicornis) whose caterpillar has a prominent horn on its back; -- c…

A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form a hedgehog. "We 'll dress [them] like urchins, ouphes, and fairies." Shak.

cially V. spectrum. These bats feed upon insects and fruit, but were formerly erroneously supposed to suck the blood of man and animals. Called also false vampire. Vampire bat (Zoöl.), a vampire, 3.

also Vandyck.] Vandyke brown (Paint.), a pigment of a deep semitranssparent brown color, supposed to be the color used by Vandyke in his pictures. -- Vandyke collar or cape, a broad collar or cape of linen and lace with a deep pointed or scalloped edge, worn lying on the shoulders; - - so called from its appearance i…

wo or more variables, connected with each other in any way whatever, to which changes are supposed to be given at will. Thus, in the equation x2 - y2 = R2, if arbitrary changes are supposed to be given to x, then x is the independent variable, and y is called a function of x. There may be two or more independent variab…

A toxic substance contained in the venom of poisonous snakes; also, a (supposedly identical) toxic substance obtained by the cleavage of an albumose.

A whip scorpion, esp. a large Mexican species (Thelyphonus giganteus) popularly supposed to be very venomous; -- from the odor that it emits when alarmed.

A quality analogous to that of a viscous fluid, supposed to be caused by internal friction, especially in the case of gases.

cells (also called nutritive, or yolk, cells) formed in the ovaries of many insects, and supposed to supply nutriment to the developing ova.

usive. -- Vi*tu"per*a*tive*ly, adv. Vituperative appellations derived from their real or supposed ill qualities. B. Jonson.

A supposed element, afterward found to be a mixture of several metals, as copper, iron, lead, nickel, etc.

A supposed collection of particles of very subtile matter, endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or a planet. Descartes attempted to account for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it, by a theory of vortices.

A variety of allanite from Sweden supposed to contain wasium.

A rare element supposed by Bahr to have been extracted from wasite, but now identified with thorium.

A small floating cloud, supposed to indicate rain.

A fabulous deity supposed to dwell in, and preside over, some body of water.