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The act of washing; an ablution; a cleansing, wetting, or dashing with water; hence, a quantity, as of clothes, washed at once.

To add water to (anything), thereby extending the quantity or bulk while reducing the strength or quality; to extend; to dilute; to weaken. To water stock, to increase the capital stock of a company by issuing new stock, thus diminishing the value of the individual shares. Cf. Water, n., 7. [Brokers' Cant]…

An instrument or machine serving to measure time by the fall, or flow, of a certain quantity of water; a clepsydra.

An instrument for measuring or ascertaining the depth or quantity of water, or for indicating the height of its surface, as in the boiler of a steam engine. See Gauge.

as to be heavy, unmanageable, or loglike; -- said of a vessel, when, by receiving a great quantity of water into her hold, she has become so heavy as not to be manageable by the helm.

The standard unit of electrical quantity, and also of current. See Coulomb, and Amp. [Obs.]

A tree from which honeydew or other liquid secretions of insects drip in considerable quantities, esp. one infested by the larvæ of any species of the genus Ptylus, allied to the cuckoo spits, which in tropical countries secrete large quantities of a watery fluid.

force with which a thing tends to the center of the earth; to determine the heaviness, or quantity of matter of; as, to weigh sugar; to weigh gold. Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Dan. v. 27.

The quantity of heaviness; comparative tendency to the center of the earth; the quantity of matter as estimated by the balance, or expressed numerically with reference to some standard unit; as, a mass of stone having the weight of five hundred pounds. For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell, Once set on ringing, with hi…

the top of a vertical plate or plank, through which water flows, -- used in measuring the quantity of flowing water.

A quantity; a goodly number. [Scot.] "A wheen other dogs." Sir W. Scott.

ip a vagrant; to whip one with thirty nine lashes; to whip a perverse boy. Who, for false quantities, was whipped at school. Dryden.

Sale of goods by the piece or large quantity, as distinguished from retail. By wholesale, in the mass; in large quantities; without distinction or discrimination. Some, from vanity or envy, despise a valuable book, and throw contempt upon it by wholesale. I. Watts.

han; as, within five miles; not longer in time than; as, within an hour; not exceeding in quantity; as, expenses kept within one's income. "That he repair should again within a little while." Chaucer. Within these five hours lived Lord Hastings, Untainted, unexamined, free, at liberty. Shak.

m.), a complex acid liquid obtained in the dry distillation of wood, and containing large quantities of acetic acid; hence, specifically, acetic acid. Formerly called pyroligneous acid. -- Wood anemone (Bot.), a delicate flower (Anemone nemorosa) of early spring; -- also called windflower. See Illust. of Anemone. --…

As an emblem of immensity, a great multitude or quantity; a large number. "A world of men." Chapman. "A world of blossoms for the bee." Bryant. Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company. Shak. A world of woes dispatched in little space. Dryden. All . . . in the world, all that exists; all that is possible; as, all the…

cle tissue, in the liver, spleen, pancreas, and other organs, and also in urine (in small quantities) and some urinary calculi, and in the juices of certain plants; -- so called because it leaves a yellow residue when evaporated to dryness with nitric acid. Xanthine is closely related to uric acid.

A measure of land of uncertain quantity, varying from fifteen to forty acres; a virgate. [Obs.]

The quantity of land plowed in a day by a yoke of oxen. [Obs.] Gardner.

ding by inquiry. Zetetic method (Math.), the method used for finding the value of unknown quantities by direct search, in investigation, or in the solution of problems. [R.] Hutton.