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the length of a right line, drawn from the center of a circle, a sphere, or other curved figure, to its circumference or periphery; a radius.

Having the figure of a half sphere. Kirwan.

A figure which has seven angles; a heptagon. [R.]

A typical figure, consisting of seven equal segments of a circle, used to denote the gifts of the Holy Chost, the seven sacraments as recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, etc. [R.]

Having seven sides; as, a septilateral figure.

Permanent change of figure in consequence of excessive strain, as from compression, tension, bending, twisting, etc.; as, the set of a spring.

orm or create; especially, to mold or make into a particular form; to give proper form or figure to. I was shapen in iniquity. Ps. li. 5. Grace shaped her limbs, and beauty decked her face. Prior.

A coin, the old French crown, or écu, having on one side the figure of a shield. [Obs.] Chaucer. Shield fern (Bot.), any fern of the genus Aspidium, in which the fructifications are covered with shield-shaped indusia; -- called also wood fern. See Illust. of Indusium.

en in such a way as to produce an effect of variegation, of changeable tints, or of being figured; as, shot silks. See Shoot, v. t., 8.

es as distinguished from the shorter edges, called ends; a bounding line of a geometrical figure; as, the side of a field, of a square or triangle, of a river, of a road, etc.

Little images or figures of earthenware exposed for sale, or given as presents, on the last two days of the Saturnalia; hence, the last two, or the sixth and seventh, days of the Saturnalia.

Any symbol or emblem which prefigures, typifles, or represents, an idea; a type; hence, sometimes, a picture. The holy symbols, or signs, are not barely significative; but what they represent is as certainly delivered to us as the symbols themselves. Brerewood. Saint George of Merry England, the sign of victory. Spense…

A letter or figure placed at the bottom of the first page of each sheet of a book or pamphlet, as a direction to the binder in arranging and folding the sheets.

Deserving to be considered; important; momentous; as, a significant event. Significant figures (Arith.), the figures which remain to any number, or decimal fraction, after the ciphers at the right or left are canceled. Thus, the significant figures of 25,000, or of .0025, are 25.

Homogenous; uniform. [R.] Boyle. Similar figures (Geom.), figures which differ from each other only in magnitude, being made up of the same number of like parts similarly situated. -- Similar rectilineal figures, such as have their several angles respectively equal, each to each, and their sides about the equal angles…

ry falling down of the seeds yieldeth corn. Sir. W. Raleigh. I took notice of this little figure for the singularity of the instrument. Addison.

Not stout or heavy; slender. His own figure, which was formerly so slight. Sir W. Scott.

brant; hence, of sounds produced in a cavity, deep- toned; as, sonorous rhonchi. Sonorous figures (Physics), figures formed by the vibrations of a substance capable of emitting a musical tone, as when the bow of a violin is drawn along the edge of a piece of glass or metal on which sand is strewed, and the sand arrange…

a river winding through woods or in meadows, as when it is tossed up in so many whimsical figures at Versailles. Addison. As soon as, or So soon as, imediately at or after another event. "As soon as he came nigh unto the camp . . . he saw the calf, and the dancing." Ex. xxxii. 19. See So . . . as, under So. -- Soon at…

Letters, figures, points, marks, spaces, or quadrats, belonging to a case, separately considered. Out of sorts (Print.), with some letters or sorts of type deficient or exhausted in the case or font; hence, colloquially, out of order; ill; vexed; disturbed. -- To run upon sorts (Print.), to use or require a greater nu…