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Having equivalent signification and reach; expressing the same thing, but differently.

or upon principles of equity jurisprudence; as, an equitable estate; equitable assets, assignment, mortgage, etc. Abbott.

The condition of being equivalent or equal; equality of worth, value, signification, or force; as, an equivalence of definitions.

Equal in wortir or value, force, power, effect, import, and the like; alike in significance and value; of the same import or meaning. For now to serve and to minister, servile and ministerial, are terms equivalent. South.

Capable of being ascribed to different motives, or of signifying opposite feelings, purposes, or characters; deserving to be suspected; as, his actions are equivocal. "Equivocal repentances." Milton.

To use words of equivocal or doubtful signification; to express one's opinions in terms which admit of different senses, with intent to deceive; to use ambiguous expressions with a view to mislead; as, to equivocate is the work of duplicity. All that Garnet had to say for him was that he supposed he meant to equivocate…

The use of expressions susceptible of a double signification, with a purpose to mislead. There being no room for equivocations, there is no need of distinctions. Locke.

An ambiguous term; a word susceptible of different significations. Coleridge.

to men or things; as in hater, farmer, heater, grater. At the end of names of places, -er signifies a man of the place; as, Londoner, i. e., London man.

A period of time in which a new order of things prevails; a signal stage of history; an epoch. Painting may truly be said to have opened the new era of culture. J. A. Symonds.

A medicine designed to be snuffed up the nose, to promote discharges of mucus; a sternutatory. Coxe. -- a.

The figure or shell of an escalop, considered as a sign that the bearer had been on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Hence:

A suffix signifying beginning, beginning to be; as, adolescent, effervescent, etc.

Drawn outside of; -- used to designate a circle that touches one of the sides of a given triangle, and also the other two sides produced.

Having an escutcheon; furnished with a coat of arms or ensign. Young.

Designed for, and understood by, the specially initiated alone; not communicated, or not intelligible, to the general body of followers; private; interior; acroamatic; -- said of the private and more recondite instructions and doctrines of philosophers. Opposed to exoteric. Enough if every age produce two or three crit…

e were established The people's magistrates. Shak. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed. Dan. vi. 8.

tors, quartermasters, commissaries, engineers, ordnance officers, paymasters, physicians, signal officers, judge advocates; also, the noncommissioned assistants of the above officers.

To produce, as figures or designs, on mental, glass, or the like, by means of lines or strokes eaten in or corroded by means of some strong acid.

A design carried out by means of the above process; a pattern on metal, glass, etc., produced by etching.