Search the Dictionary

the paraffine hydrocarbons and their derivatives; the marsh gas or methane series. -- Natural fats (Chem.), the group of oily substances of natural occurrence, as butter, lard, tallow, etc., as distinguished from certain fatlike substance of artificial production, as paraffin. Most natural fats are essentially mixture…

t; a progenitor; especially, a first ancestor; a founder of a race or family; -- in the plural, fathers, ancestors. David slept with his fathers. 1 Kings ii. 10. Abraham, who is the father of us all. Rom. iv. 16.

; -- so called because the higher members, as stearic and palmitic acids, occur in the natural fats, and are themselves fatlike substances. -- Fatty clays. See under Clay. -- Fatty degeneration (Med.), a diseased condition, in which the oil globules, naturally present in certain organs, are so multiplied as gradually…

opening of the throat; faucial; esp., (Phon.) produced in the fauces, as certain deep guttural sounds found in the Semitic and some other languages. Ayin is the most difficult of the faucals. I. Taylor (The Alphabet).

One who describes the fauna of country; a naturalist. Gilbert White.

ydraulic Engin.), a water course which supplies a canal or reservoir by gravitation or natural flow.

and proportioning of windows; -- used by modern writers for the decorating of an architectural composition by means of the window (and door) openings, their ornaments, and proportions.

A system of spirit influences for good and evil believed by the Chinese to attend the natural features of landscape; also, a kind of geomancy dealing with these influences, used in determining sites for graves, houses, etc.

es, intermixed or twisted together, wound with a ribbon, and hanging or depending in a natural curve. See Illust. of Bucranium.

A festival. Fête champêtre ( Etym: [F.], a festival or entertainment in the open air; a rural festival.

certain African tribes to represent in such a way, or to be so connected with, a supernatural being, that the possession of it gives to the possessor power to control that being.

Any temporary fortification thrown up by an army in the field; -- commonly in the plural. All works which do not come under the head of permanent fortification are called fieldworks. Wilhelm.

, a preparation of fine oatmeal for feeding caged birds. -- Fig faun, one of a class of rural deities or monsters supposed to live on figs. "Therefore shall dragons dwell there with the fig fauns." Jer. i. 39. (Douay version). -- Fig gnat (Zoöl.), a small fly said to be injurious to figs. -- Fig leaf, the leaf tree;…

A piece of pottery ornamented with representations of natural objects. Whose figulines and rustic wares Scarce find him bread from day to day. Longfellow.

ovement of one or more parts mingles passing discords with the harmony; -- called also figural, figurative, and figured counterpoint or descant (although the term figured is more commonly applied to a bass with numerals written above or below to indicate the other notes of the harmony). -- Figurate numbers (Math.), nu…

tate; revennue; public money; sometimes, the income of an individual; often used in the plural for funds; available money; resources. All the finances or revenues of the imperial crown. Bacon.

e of being split, cleft, or divided in the direction of the grain, like wood, or along natural planes of cleavage, like crystals. This crystal is a pellucid, fissile stone. Sir I. Newton.

To deprive of a fleece, or natural covering of wool.

An Australian name for the very hard wood of the Eucalyptus piluralis.

reatures; -- especially applied to sheep and birds, rarely to persons or (except in the plural) to cattle and other large animals; as, a flock of ravenous fowl. Milton. The heathen . . . came to Nicanor by flocks. 2 Macc. xiv. 14.