IDYL n.
tten in an eleveted and highly finished style; also, by extension, any artless and easily flowing description, either in poetry or prose, of simple, rustic life, of pastoral scenes, and the like. [Written also idyll.] Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl. Mrs. Browning. His [Goldsmith's] lovely idyl of the Vicar's home.…
IMPEDANCE n.
The apparent resistance in an electric circuit to the flow of an alternating current, analogous to the actual electrical resistance to a direct current, being the ratio of electromotive force to the current. It is equal to R2 + X2, where R = ohmic resistance, X = reactance. For an inductive circuit, X = 2pfL, where f =…
IMPERFECT a. 5 definitions
and sixth, whose ratios are less simple than those of the fifth and forth. -- Imperfect flower (Bot.), a flower wanting either stamens or pistils. Gray. -- Imperfect interval (Mus.), one a semitone less than perfect; as, an imperfect fifth. -- Imperfect number (Math.), a number either greater or less than the sum o…
INDEFINITE a. 4 definitions
umerous or variable to make a particular enumeration important; -- said of the parts of a flower, and the like. Also, indeterminate. Indefinite article (Gram.), the word a or an, used with nouns to denote any one of a common or general class. -- Indefinite inflorescence. (Bot.) See Indeterminate inflorescence, under I…
INDETERMINATE a.
e equations. -- Indeterminate inflorescence (Bot.), a mode of inflorescence in which the flowers all arise from axillary buds, the terminal bud going on to grow and sometimes continuing the stem indefinitely; -- called also acropetal, botryose, centripetal, and indefinite inflorescence. Gray. -- Indeterminate problem…
INDIAN n. 5 definitions
), growing in clusters in dark woods, and having scalelike leaves, and a solitary nodding flower. The whole plant is waxy white, but turns black in drying. -- Indian plantain (Bot.), a name given to several species of the genus Cacalia, tall herbs with composite white flowers, common through the United States in rich…