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Of or pertaining to vision or sight. The moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views. Milton.

Any person reputed uncommonly wise; one whose decisions are regarded as of great authority; as, a literary oracle. "Oracles of mode." Tennyson. The country rectors . . . thought him an oracle on points of learning. Macaulay.

a circular, or nearly circular, or a spheroidal, outline. Orbiculate leaf (Bot.), a leaf whose outline is nearly circular.

rded. -- Orderly officer, the officer of the day, or that officer of a corps or regiment whose turn it is to supervise for the day the arrangements for food, cleanliness, etc. Farrow. -- Orderly room. (a) The court of the commanding officer, where charges against the men of the regiment are tried. (b) The office of t…

r; methodical. "A life blissful and ordinate." Chaucer. Ordinate figure (Math.), a figure whose sides and angles are equal; a regular figure.

A genus of bombycid moths whose caterpillars (esp. those of Orgyia leucostigma) are often very injurious to fruit trees and shade trees. The female is wingless. Called also vaporer moth.

That oscillates; vibrating; swinging. Oscillating engine, a steam engine whose cylinder oscillates on trunnions instead of being permanently fixed in a perpendicular or other direction. Weale.

A curve whose contact with a given curve, at a given point, is of a higher order (or involves the equality of a greater number of successive differential coefficients of the ordinates of the curves taken at that point) than that of any other curve of the same kind.

An apparatus, consisting of a number of cells whose sides are of parchment paper, for conducting the process of osmosis. It is used esp. in sugar refining to remove potassium salts from the molasses.

Banishment by popular vote, -- a means adopted at Athens to rid the city of a person whose talent and influence gave umbrage.

To surpass in bragging; hence, to make appear inferior. Whose bare outbragg'd the web it seemed to wear. Shak.

A summoner whose office is to cite men before the sheriff. [Obs.]

or popularly, of an ellipse. Cassinian oval (Geom.), the locus of a point the product of whose distances from two fixed points is constant; -- so called from Cassini, who first investigated the curve. Thus, in the diagram, if P moves so that P A.P B is constant, the point P describes a Cassinian oval. The locus may co…

To sell for a higher price than; to exceed in selling price. One whose beauty Would oversell all Italy. Beau. & Fl.

-- Sea owl (Zoöl.), the lumpfish. -- Owl train, a cant name for certain railway trains whose run is in the nighttime.

the sixteenth letter of the English alphabet, is a nonvocal consonant whose form and value come from the Latin, into which language the letter was brought, through the ancient Greek, from the Phonician, its probable origin being Egyptian. Etymologically P is most closely related to b, f, and v; as hobble, hopple; fathe…

A person whose business is to pack things; especially, one who packs food for preservation; as, a pork packer.

One side of a leaf of a book or manuscript. Such was the book from whose pages she sang. Longfellow.

One whose occupation is to paint; esp.:

la as a directing curve; as, a parabolic conoid. Parabolic conoid, a paraboloid; a conoid whose directing curve is a parabola. See Conoid. -- Parabolic mirror (Opt.), a mirror having a paraboloidal surface which gives for parallel rays (as those from very distant objects) images free from aberration. It is used in ref…