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Best. [R.] "The bettermost classes." Brougham.

aw, in which olive oil is sometimes brought from Italy; -- called by chemists a Florence flask. [U. S.] Bartlett.

to injure) by witchcraft or sorcery. See how I am bewitched; behold, mine arm Is like a blasted sapling withered up. Shak.

A fuse used in blasting, consisting of a long cylinder of explosive material inclosed in a varnished wrapping of rope or hose. It burns from 2 to 4 feet a minute.

A portable boat made of skins stretched on a frame. [Alaska] The Century.

The prayer before the sermon, with petitions for various specified classes of persons.

A plant which exists or lasts for two years.

A game played with ivory balls o a cloth-covered, rectangular table, bounded by elastic cushions. The player seeks to impel his ball with his cue so that it shall either strike (carom upon) two other balls, or drive another ball into one of the pockets with which the table sometimes is furnished.

as to enable a person to view an object with both eyes at once; a double- barreled field glass or an opera glass.

A binocular glass, whether opera glass, telescope, or microscope.

Bioplasm.

The classification of living organisms according to their structural character; taxonomy.

A combination of two short rectangular glass prisms cemented together at their diagonal faces so as to form a cube; -- called also optical cube. It is used in one form of photometer.

Seen from above, as if by a flying bird; embraced at a glance; hence, generalas, a bird's-eye view.

To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to; as, the anchor bites the ground. The last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, . . . it turned and turned with nothing to bite. Dickens. To bite the dust, To bite the ground, to fall in the agonies of death; as, he made his enemy bite the…

-- Bitter earth (Min.), tale earth; calcined magnesia. -- Bitter principles (Chem.), a class of substances, extracted from vegetable products, having strong bitter taste but with no sharply defined chemical characteristics. -- Bitter salt, Epsom salts;; magnesium sulphate. -- Bitter vetch (Bot.), a name given to tw…

An American woody climber (Celastrus scandens), whose yellow capsules open late in autumn, and disclose the red aril which covers the seeds; -- also called Roxbury waxwork.

or in warping. Other bitts are used for belaying (belaying bitts), for sustaining the windlass (carrick bitts, winch bitts, or windlass bitts), to hold the pawls of the windlass (pawl bitts) etc.

mollusk having a shell consisting of two lateral plates or valves joined together by an elastic ligament at the hinge, which is usually strengthened by prominences called teeth. The shell is closed by the contraction of two transverse muscles attached to the inner surface, as in the clam, -- or by one, as in the oyste…

et and juicy variety of European grape, of a dark purplish black color, much grown under glass in northern latitudes.