Search the Dictionary

discharging the spores. There are many species, collectively termed Musci, growing on the earth, on rocks, and trunks of trees, etc., and a few in running water.

An artificial hill or elevation of earth; a raised bank; an embarkment thrown up for defense; a bulwark; a rampart; also, a natural elevation appearing as if thrown up artificially; a regular and isolated hill, hillock, or knoll. To thrid the thickets or to leap the mounds. Dryden. Mound bird. (Zoöl.) Same as Mound mak…

A mass of earth, or earth and rock, rising considerably above the common surface of the surrounding land; a mountain; a high hill; -- used always instead of mountain, when put before a proper name; as, Mount Washington; otherwise, chiefly in poetry.

A large mass of earth and rock, rising above the common level of the earth or adjacent land; earth and rock forming an isolated peak or a ridge; an eminence higher than a hill; a mount.

Vegetable mold mixed with earth, as found in low, damp places and swamps.

Earth and water mixed so as to be soft and adhesive. Mud bass (Zoöl.), a fresh-water fish (Acantharchum pomotis) of the Eastern United States. It produces a deep grunting note. -- Mud bath, an immersion of the body, or some part of it, in mud charged with medicinal agents, as a remedy for disease. -- Mud boat, a larg…

Consisting of mud or earth; gross; impure. This muddy vesture of decay. Shak.

An earthenware compartment or oven, often shaped like a half cylinder, used in furnaces to protect objects heated from the direct action of the fire, as in scorification of ores, cupellation of ore buttons, etc.

A kind of earthen or metal drinking cup, with a handle, -- usually cylindrical and without a lip.

come greater in number; to become numerous. When men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. Gen. vi. 1.

Of or pertaining to the world; worldly; earthly; terrestrial; as, the mundane sphere. -- Mun"dane*ly, adv. The defilement of mundane passions. I. Taylor.

pawn (Bot.), the mycelium, or primary filamentous growth, of the mushroom; also, cakes of earth and manure containing this growth, which are used for propagation of the mushroom.

lungs and only four spinnerets. They do not spin webs, but usually construct tubes in the earth, which are often furnished with a trapdoor. The South American bird spider (Mygale avicularia), and the crab spider, or matoutou (M. cancerides) are among the largest species. Some of the species are erroneously called taran…

to be plants and often separated as a distinct phylum (Myxophyta). They are found on damp earth and decaying vegetable matter, and consist of naked masses of protoplasm, often of considerable size, which creep very slowly over the surface and ingest solid food. -- Myx`o*my*ce"tous (#), a.

rope. Hallam. Nadir of the sun (Astron.), the axis of the conical shadow projected by the earth. Crabb.

A round earthen dish, with a flat bottom and sloping sides. [Written also nappie.]

A part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock. All nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. Rev. vii. 9.

only canst redeem, Their nature also to thy nature join, And be thyself man among men on earth. Milton.

Of or pertaining to a region of the earth's surface including all of temperate and arctic North America and Greenland. In the geographical distribution of animals, this region is marked off as the habitat certain species.

Belonging to, or designating, a region of the earth's surface which comprises most of South America, the Antilles, and tropical North America.