Search the Dictionary

A small flat bastion, raised in the middle of an overlong curtain.

Moderately wet; damp; humid; not dry; as, a moist atmosphere or air. "Moist eyes." Shak.

ation formed among the tenantry in Ireland about 1843, principally for the purpose of intimidating law officers and preventing the service of legal writs. Its members disguised themselves in the dress of women. (b) A member of a similar association of Irishmen organized in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, ab…

Moloch horridus). The horns on the head and numerous spines on the body give it a most formidable appearance.

A basic compound containing one amido group; as, methyl amine is a monamine.

An extra middle seam made at the junction of two breadths of canvas, ordinarily joined by only two rows of stitches.

nds of the Indian Ocean, which blow from the southwest from the latter part of May to the middle of September, and from the northeast from about the middle of October to the middle of December.

As if under the influence of the moon; in the manner of a lunatic. [Obs.] Middleton.

e style of the Moors. Moorish architecture, the style developed by the Moors in the later Middle Ages, esp. in Spain, in which the arch had the form of a horseshoe, and the ornamentation admitted no representation of animal life. It has many points of resemblance to the Arabian and Persian styles, but should be disting…

ia), which formed a separate church of Moravia, a northern district of Austria, about the middle of the 15th century. After being nearly extirpated by persecution, the society, under the name of The Renewed Church of the United Brethren, was reëstablished in 1722-35 on the estates of Count Zinzendorf in Saxony. Called…

variously understood as the earliest hours of light, the time near sunrise; the time from midnight to noon, from rising to noon, etc.

little motes in the sun do ever stir, though there be no wind. Bacon. We are motes in the midst of generations. Landor.

A rural custom in England, of visiting one's parents on Midlent Sunday, -- supposed to have been originally visiting the mother church to make offerings at the high altar.

of the genus Momotus, having a strong serrated beak. In most of the species the two long middle tail feathers are racket-shaped at the tip, when mature. The bird itself is said by some writers to trim them into this shape. They feed on insects, reptiles, and fruit, and are found from Mexico to Brazil. The name is deri…

a mound of refuse shells, collected by aborigines who subsisted largely on shellfish. See Midden, and Kitchen middens.

To destroy; to put an end to. [Canst thou] murder thy breath in middle of a word Shak.

lowish, crystalline which turns red on exposure to the air; -- called also uramil, dialuramide, and formerly purpuric acid.

A kind of shell limestone, whose strata form the middle one of the three divisions of the Triassic formation in Germany. See Chart, under Geology.

A poisonous amido acid, C6H13NO2, separated by Brieger from decaying horseflesh. In physiological action, it is similar to curare.

-- Nail-headed molding (Arch.), an ornament consisting of a series of low four-sided pyramids resembling the heads of large nails; -- called also nail-head molding, or nail-head. It is the same as the simplest form of dogtooth. See Dogtooth.