Search the Dictionary

The highest vocal part; the air or melody in choral music; anciently the tenor, now the soprano. Canto fermo ( Etym: [It.] (Mus.), the plain ecclesiastical chant in cathedral service; the plain song.

"The canty dame." Wordsworth [Scot. & Prov. Eng.] Contented with little, and canty with mair. Burns.

A rough draft or model of a song, air, or other literary or musical composition; esp. one to show a poet the measure of the verses he is to make. Grabb.

A song or air for one or more voices, of Provençal origin, resembling, though not strictly, the madrigal.

nd Africa. Being impermeable to liquids and gases, and not readly affected by exposure to air, acids, and alkalies, it is used, especially when vulcanized, for many purposes in the arts and in manufactures. Also called India rubber (because it was first brought from India, and was formerly used chiefly for erasing penc…

Having long filaments; resembling a hair; slender. See Capillary.

Any villous or hairy covering; a fine fiber or filament, as of the nerves.

Resembling a hair; fine; minute; very slender; having minute tubes or interspaces; having very small bore; as, the capillary vessels of animals and plants.

A bush of hair; frizzing of the hair. Clarke.

In the shape or form of, a hair, or of hairs.

Having much hair; hairy. [R.]

A plane used for working the upper surface of staircase rails.

outh American monkey (Cabus capucinus), having the forehead naked and wrinkled, with the hair on the crown reflexed and resembling a monk's cowl, the rest being of a grayish white; -- called also capucine monkey, weeper, sajou, sapajou, and sai.

s a native of Africa and Asia. Its ears are black externally, and tipped with long black hairs.

A staircase in a spiral form. En caracole ( Etym: [F.], spiral; -- said of a staircase.

amp in mines, and is hance called after damp; it is also know as choke damp, and mephilic air. Water will absorb its own volume of it, and more than this under pressure, and in this state becomes the common soda water of the shops, and the carbonated water of natural springs. Combined with lime it constitutes limestone…

An apparatus in which coal gas, hydrogen, or air is passed through or over a volatile hydrocarbon, in order to confer or increase illuminating power. [Written also carburettor.]

One that carburets; specif., an apparatus in which air or gas is carbureted, as by passing it through a light petroleum oil. The carburetor for a gasoline engine is usually either a surface carburetor, or a float, float-feed, or spray, carburetor. In the former air is charged by being passed over the surface of gasolin…

contempt or ridicule. "To pamper his own carcass." South. Lovely her face; was ne'er so fair a creature. For earthly carcass had a heavenly feature. Oldham.

fig.), an attraction or inducement; as, this will be a good card for the last day of the fair.