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y a common menstruum, without great difficulty, as gold, platinum, lime, etc. -- Fixed capital. See the Note under Capital, n., 4. -- Fixed fact, a well established fact. [Colloq.] -- Fixed light, one which emits constant beams; -- distinguished from a flashing, revolving, or intermittent light. -- Fixed oils (Chem.…

wicks invested with a quick-burning substance (anciently, perhaps, wax; in modern times, pitch or the like); hence, any torch.

riest devoted to the service of a particular god, from whom he received a distinguishing epithet. The most honored were those of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, called respectively Flamen Dialis, Flamen Martialis, and Flamen Quirinalis. Affrights the flamens at their service quaint. Milton.

That part of the acting surface of a gear wheel tooth that lies within the pitch line. Flank attack (Mil.), an attack upon the side of an army or body of troops, distinguished from one upon its front or rear. -- Flank company (Mil.), a certain number of troops drawn up on the right or left of a battalion; usually gren…

Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat.

Depression of tone; the state of being below the true pitch; -- opposed to sharpness or acuteness.

To lower the pitch of; to cause to sound less sharp; to let fall from the pitch. To flatten a sail (Naut.), to set it more nearly fore-and-aft of the vessel. -- Flattening oven, in glass making, a heated chamber in which split glass cylinders are flattened for window glass.

at severity, and no ways flexible to the will of the people. Bacon. Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible. Shak.

Not funded; not fixed, invested, or determined; as, floating capital; a floating debt. Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island. Macaulay. Floating anchor (Naut.), a drag or sea anchor; drag sail. -- Floating battery (Mil.), a battery erected on rafts or the hulls of shi…

Having floral ornaments; as, floriated capitals of Gothic pillars.

ng), the imaginary surface which all the planes of flotation touch when a vessel rolls or pitches; the envelope of all such planes.

ircles or vibrations by way of show or triumph; to brandish. And flourishes his blade in spite of me. Shak.

Having conspicuous flowers; -- used as an epithet with many names of plants; as, flowering ash; flowering dogwood; flowering almond, etc. Flowering fern, a genus of showy ferns (Osmunda), with conspicuous bivalvular sporangia. They usually grow in wet places. -- Flowering plants, plants which have stamens and pistils,…

A small operation not involving considerable part of one's capital, or not in the line of one's ordinary business; a venture. [Cant] Bartlett.

tion of leaves, flowers, and branches, in architecture, intended to ornament and enrich capitals, friezes, pediments, etc. Foliage plant (Bot.), any plant cultivated for the beauty of its leaves, as many kinds of Begonia and Coleus.

that instead of which something else controls in the performing of an action, or that in spite of which anything is done, occurs, or is; hence, equivalent to notwithstanding, in spite of; -- generally followed by all, aught, anything, etc. The writer will do what she please for all me. Spectator. God's desertion shall,…

A small hand pump for sinking pits, draining cellars, etc.

nsipid. He [Prof. Ayton] would purge his book of much offensive matter, if he struck out epithets which are in the bad taste of the forcible-feeble school. N. Brit. Review.

The accomplishing of any purpose violently, precipitately, prematurely, or with unusual expedition.

Anything peculiar to a foreign language or people; a foreign idiom or custom. It is a pity to see the technicalities of the so-called liberal professions distigured by foreignisms. Fitzed. Hall.