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An annual South American and West Indian plant (Spigelia Anthelmia).

A mountain tribe of Mexican Indians living near Acapulco. They are remarkable for having the dark skin of the face irregularly spotted with white. Called also speckled Indians.

token of amity or preparatory to making a treaty of peace, -- a custom of the American Indians.

A kind of clay slate, carved by the Indians into tobacco pipes. Cf. Catlinite.

Europe, but now found near the abode of civilized man in nearly all parts of the world. Indian plantain. (Bot.) See under Indian. -- Mud plantain, a homely North American aquatic plant (Heteranthera reniformis), having broad, reniform leaves. -- Rattlesnake plantain, an orchidaceous plant (Goodyera pubescens), with t…

one or piece of antler fastened to the end of a slender wooden handle, used by American Indians from the Great Plains to the Mackenzie River.

at circle; as, the pole of the horizon; the pole of the ecliptic; the pole of a given meridian.

Pudding made of Indian meal; also, porridge made of chestnut meal. [Italy]

A name for several East Indian, or their wood, used for the masts and spars of vessels, as Calophyllum angustifolium, C. inophullum, and Sterculia foetida; -- called also peon.

To cause to pop; to cause to burst open by heat, as grains of Indian corn; as, to pop corn or chestnuts. To pop off, to thrust away, or put off promptly; as, to pop one off with a denial. Locke. -- To pop the question, to make an offer of marriage to a lady. [Colloq.] Dickens.

Among the Kwakiutl, Chimmesyan, and other Indians of the northwestern coast of North America, a ceremonial distribution by a man of gifts to his own and neighboring tribesmen, often, formerly, to his own impoverishment. Feasting, dancing, and public ceremonies accompany it.

A priest, or conjurer, among the North American Indians. Be it sagamore, sachem, or powwow. Longfellow.

tion; -- so called because either equinox, owing to its westerly motion, comes to the meridian sooner each day than the point it would have occupied without the motion of precession, and thus precedes that point continually with reference to the time of transit and motion.

A protector; a guardian; a presiding genius. [Obs.] Just Apollo, president of verse. Waller.

An East Indian insectivore (Tupaia ferruginea). It is arboreal in its habits, and has a bushy tail. The fur is soft, and varies from rusty red to maroon and to brownish black.

ean region, and O. Dillenii has become common in India. -- Prickly pole (Bot.), a West Indian palm (Bactris Plumierana), the slender trunk of which bears many rings of long black prickles. -- Prickly withe (Bot.), a West Indian cactaceous plant (Cereus triangularis) having prickly, slender, climbing, triangular stems…

to any other figure more simple than itself, as a triangle, a pyramid, etc. -- Prime meridian (Astron.), the meridian from which longitude is reckoned, as the meridian of Greenwich or Washington. -- Prime minister, the responsible head of a ministry or executive government; applied particularly to that of England. -…

e, generally coinciding with some principal circle of the sphere, as the equator or a meridian. -- Primitive rocks (Geol.), primary rocks. See under Primary. -- Primitive sheath. (Anat.) See Neurilemma. -- Primitive streak or trace (Anat.), an opaque and thickened band where the mesoblast first appears in the verteb…

Of or pertaining to the lowest beds of the Silurian age, corresponding to the Acadian and Potsdam periods in American geology. It is called also Cambrian, and by many geologists is separated from the Silurian.

Proboscidian.