Search the Dictionary

An embrasure or indentation in a battlement; a loophole in a fortress; an indentation; a notch. See Merlon, and Illust. of Battlement.

with the heavy and ungrounded charge of disloyalty and disaffection, an uncorrupt, independent, and reforming parliament. Burke.

An indentation in the glacis of the covered way, at a point where a traverse is placed.

ritillaria imperialis) of the Lily family, having at the top of the stalk a cluster of pendent bell- shaped flowers surmounted with a tuft of green leaves.

An unidentified plant, probably the crowfoot. "The tufted crowtoe." Milton.

A Chilian burrowing rodent of the genus Spalacopus.

One who has care or custody, as of some public building; a keeper or superintendent.

A keeper; a custodian; a superintendent. [Obs.] Custos rotulorum (r Etym: [LL., keeper of the rolls] (Eng. Law), the principal justice of the peace in a county, who is also keeper of the rolls and records of the sessions of the peace.

The failure of a college officer or student to be present at any appointed exercise. [College Cant]

pod of the genus Sepia, having an internal shell, large eyes, and ten arms furnished with denticulated suckers, by means of which it secures its prey. The name is sometimes applied to dibranchiate cephalopods generally.

uch or sac without opening, usually membranous and containing morbid matter, which is accidentally developed in one of the natural cavaties or in the substance of an organ.

A nonnucleated mass of protoplasm, the supposed simplest form of independent life differing from the amoeba, in which nuclei are present.

Deeply indented; having large teeth; thus, a fess dancetté has only three teeth in the whole width of the escutcheon.

n of what is addressed to the understanding. Nervous deafness, a variety of deafness dependent upon morbid change in some portion of the nervous system, especially the auditory nerve.

. -- Dean of arches, the lay judge of the court of arches. -- Dean of faculty, the president of an incorporation or barristers; specifically, the president of the incorporation of advocates in Edinburgh. -- Dean of guild, a magistrate of Scotch burghs, formerly, and still, in some burghs, chosen by the Guildry, whos…

Free from ambiguity; unequivocal; unmistakable; unquestionable; clear; evident; as, a decided advantage. "A more decided taste for science." Prescott.

, poem, etc., in public as a rhetorical exercise; to practice public speaking; as, the students declaim twice a week.

on of speeches as an exercise in schools and colleges; as, the practice declamation by students. The public listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. Macaulay.

ratio of those dying in a year to those living through the year is constant, being independent of the age of the persons.

An accidental blowing off of, or other serious damage to, the breechblock of a gun; also, a removal of the breechblock for the purpose of disabling the gun.