ROMAN CALENDAR n.
Julian calendar. In designating the days of the month, the Romans reckoned backward from three fixed points, the calends, the nones, and the ides. The calends were always the first day of the month. The ides fell on the 15th in March, May, July (Quintilis), and October, and on the 13th in other months. The nones came…
ROMANCE n.
vagant adventures, of love, and the like. "Romances that been royal." Chaucer. Upon these three columns -- chivalry, gallantry, and religion -- repose the fictions of the Middle Ages, especially those known as romances. These, such as we now know them, and such as display the characteristics above mentioned, were origi…
ROW n.
a rank; a file; as, a row of trees; a row of houses or columns. And there were windows in three rows. 1 Kings vii. 4. The bright seraphim in burning row. Milton. Row culture (Agric.), the practice of cultivating crops in drills. -- Row of points (Geom.), the points on a line, infinite in number, as the points in which…
RUBIACEOUS a.
order of plants (Rubiaceæ) named after the madder (Rubia tinctoria), and including about three hundred and seventy genera and over four thousand species. Among them are the coffee tree, the trees yielding peruvian bark and quinine, the madder, the quaker ladies, and the trees bearing the edible fruits called genipap a…
RULE n.
come in line with each other, and thus permit folding in one direction only. -- Rule of three (Arith.), that rule which directs, when three terms are given, how to find a fourth, which shall have the same ratio to the third term as the second has to the first; proportion. See Proportion, 5 (b). -- Rule of thumb, any…
SAP n.
besieged place by digging under cover of gabions, etc. Sap fagot (Mil.), a fascine about three feet long, used in sapping, to close the crevices between the gabions before the parapet is made. -- Sap roller (Mil.), a large gabion, six or seven feet long, filled with fascines, which the sapper sometimes rolls along be…
SCAUP n.
rn ducks of the genus Aythya, or Fuligula. The adult males are, in large part, black. The three North American species are: the greater scaup duck (Aythya marila, var. nearctica), called also broadbill, bluebill, blackhead, flock duck, flocking fowl, and raft duck; the lesser scaup duck (A. affinis), called also little…