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giving an orange color to goods formed of animal tissue, as silk or wool, not by coloring matter, but by producing a certain change in the fiber by the action of dilute nitric acid. Tomlinson.

Any matter which makes land productive; a fertilizing substance, as the contents of stables and barnyards, dung, decaying animal or vegetable substances, etc. Dryden.

The refuse matter which remains after the pressure of fruit, particularly of grapes.

A quantity of matter cohering together so as to make one body, or an aggregation of particles or things which collectively make one body or quantity, usually of considerable size; as, a mass of ore, metal, sand, or water. If it were not for these principles, the bodies of the earth, planets, comets, sun, and all things…

of equity, who acts as an assistant to the chancellor or judge, by inquiring into various matters referred to him, and reporting thereon to the court. -- Master of arts, one who takes the second degree at a university; also, the degree or title itself, indicated by the abbreviation M. A., or A. M. -- Master of the ho…

Consisting of matter; not spiritual; corporeal; physical; as, material substance or bodies. The material elements of the universe. Whewell.

Material substances in the aggregate; matter. [R. & Obs.] A. Chalmers.

ains that spiritual phenomena, so called, are the result of some peculiar organization of matter.

To regard as matter; to consider or explain by the laws or principles which are appropriate to matter.

In the state of matter. I do not mean that anything is separable from a body by fire that was not materially preëxistent in it. Boyle.

Consisting of matter. [Obs.] Bacon.

Act of forming matter. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

o pure or abstract, which considers magnitude or quantity abstractly, without relation to matter; and mixed or applied, which treats of magnitude as subsisting in material bodies, and is consequently interwoven with physical considerations.

urity; hence, specifically, the process of suppurating perfectly; the formation of pus or matter.

The name for the doctrine of the unreality of matter, called, in English, idealism; hence, nothingness; vanity; illusion.

, mechanics, or the laws of motion; pertaining to the quantitative relations of force and matter, as distinguished from mental, vital, chemical, etc.; as, mechanical principles; a mechanical theory; mechanical deposits.

Mechanical operation or action. He acknowledges nothing besides matter and motion; so that all must be performed either by mechanism or accident. Bentley.

ouldst thou meddle to thy hurt 2 Kings xiv. 10. The civil lawyers . . . have meddled in a matter that belongs not to them. Locke. To meddle and make, to intrude one's self into another person's concerns. [Archaic] Shak.

A discharge from the bowels of black matter, consisting of altered blood.

The dark coloring matter of the liquid of the cuttlefish.