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The act of altering or making different. Alteration, though it be from worse to better, hath in it incoveniences. Hooker.

Distributed, as leaves, singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence. Gray. Alternate alligation. See Alligation. -- Alternate angles (Geom.), the internal and angles made by two lines with a third, on opposite sides of it. It the parallels AB, CD, are cut by the line…

Offering a choice of two things.

The quality of being alternative, or of offering a choice between two.

A genus of cruciferous plants; madwort. The sweet alyssum (A. maritimum), cultivated for bouquets, bears small, white, sweet- scented flowers.

A mixture or compound of different things.

The mixing or blending of different elements, races, societies, etc.; also, the result of such combination or blending; a homogeneous union. Macaulay.

Of, pertaining to, or resembling, an order of plants differing from the lily family chiefly in having the ovary below the

An eager, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling a way ambition: By that sin fell the angels. Shak. The pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres. Burke.

The resiniferous tree Agathis Dammara, of the Moluccas.

The fabled food of the gods (as nectar was their drink), which conferred immortality upon those who partook of it.

not stationary; movable; as, an ambulatory court, which exercises its jurisdiction in different places. The priesthood . . . before was very ambulatory, and dispersed into all families. Jer. Taylor.

of a penalty at the discretion of the court; also, a mulct or penalty thus imposed. It differs from a fine,in that the latter is, or was originally, a fixed and certain sum prescribed by statue for an offense; but an amercement is arbitrary. Hence, the act or practice of affeering. [See Affeer.] Blackstone.…

A variety of crystallized quartz, of a purple or bluish violet color, of different shades. It is much used as a jeweler's stone. Oriental amethyst, the violet-blue variety of transparent crystallized corundum or sapphire.

The concrete juice (gum resin) of an umbelliferous plant, the Dorema ammoniacum. It is brought chiefly from Persia in the form of yellowish tears, which occur singly, or are aggregated into masses. It has a peculiar smell, and a nauseous, sweet taste, followed by a bitter one. It is inflammable, partially soluble in wa…

rms having existed only in the Mesozoic age, when they were exceedingly numerous. They differ from the nautili in having the margins of the septa very much lobed or plaited, and the siphuncle dorsal. Also called serpent stone, snake stone, and cornu Ammonis.

act or right of alienating lands to a corporation, which was considered formerly as transferring them to dead hands, or in mortmain.

Liability to be removed or dismissed from office. [R.] T. Jefferson.

r proposition, susceptible of two interpretations; and hence, of uncertain meaning. It differs from equivocation, which arises from the twofold sense of a single term.

on the horizon, from the magnetic east or west point as indicated by the compass. The difference between the magnetic and the true or astronomical amplitude (see 3 above) is the "variation of the compass."