Search the Dictionary

Elevation above the common degree. Holyday.

Excellent in an uncommon degree; very excellent. Drayton.

Higher in rank or office; more exalted in dignity; as, a superior officer; a superior degree of nobility.

Lifted up to the highest degree; most eminent; surpassing all other; supreme; as, superlative wisdom or prudence; a woman of superlative beauty; the superlative glory of the divine character.

To reward to an excessive degree. Bacon.

The number of degrees which, if added to a specified arc, make it 180°; the quantity by which an arc or an angle falls short of 180 degrees, or an arc falls short of a semicircle.

Slight degree; suggestion; hint. [Colloq.] The features are mild but expressive, with just a suspicion . . . of saturnine or sarcastic humor. A. W. Ward.

Held up to a certain pitch, degree, or level; uniform; as, sustained pasion; a sustained style of writing; a sustained note in music.

eing affected by the affection of another, with feelings correspondent in kind, if not in degree; fellow-feeling. They saw, but other sight instead -- a crowd Of ugly serpents! Horror on them fell, And horrid sympathy. Milton.

Having the same degree of heat.

which exists in several species of bark), and is thus rendered firm, durable, and in some degree impervious to water.

To bring to a proper degree of hardness; as, to temper iron or steel. The tempered metals clash, and yield a silver sound. Dryden.

Constitution; state; degree of any quality. The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power to feign, if there be no remedy. Bacon. Memory depends upon the consistence and the temperature of the brain. I. Watts.…

The process of giving the requisite degree of hardness or softness to a substance, as iron and steel; especially, the process of giving to steel the degree of hardness required for various purposes, consisting usually in first plunging the article, when heated to redness, in cold water or other liquid, to give an exces…

One belonged to a certain order or degree among the Freemasons, called Knights Templars. Also, one of an order among temperance men, styled Good Templars.

The rate or degree of movement in time. A tempo giusto (joos"to) Etym: [It.], in exact time; -- sometimes, directing a return to strict time after a tempo rubato. -- Tempo rubato. See under Rubato.

The degree of stretching to which a wire, cord, piece of timber, or the like, is strained by drawing it in the direction of its length; strain. Gwilt.

The interval between any tone and the tone represented on the tenth degree of the staff above it, as between one of the scale and three of the octave above; the octave of the third.

Possessing some quality in the third degree; having been subjected to the substitution of three atoms or radicals; as, a tertiary alcohol, amine, or salt. Cf. Primary, and Secondary. (CH3)3C.OH.

ect which tests the power or quality of a microscope or telescope, by requiring a certain degree of excellence in the instrument to determine its existence or its peculiar texture or markings. -- Test paper. (a) (Chem.) Paper prepared for use in testing for certain substances by being saturated with a reagent which ch…