Search the Dictionary

A substance formerly supposed to give to soup and broth their characteristic odor, and probably consisting of one or several of the class of nitrogenous substances which are called extractives.

the free state, but forming a well-known and stable series of salts (osmates), which were formerly improperly called osmites. -- Osmic tetroxide (Chem.), a white volatile crystalline substance, OsO4, the most stable and characteristic of the compounds of osmium. It has a burning taste, and gives off a vapor, which is…

A cellular calc tufa, which in some places forms incrustations on the stems of plants, -- formerly supposed to have the quality of uniting fractured bones.

East men; Danish settlers in Ireland, formerly so called. Lyttelton.

To be necessary, fit, becoming, or expedient; to behoove; -- in this sense formerly sometimes used impersonally or without a subject expressed. "Well ought us work." Chaucer. To speak of this as it ought, would ask a volume. Milton. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things Luke xxiv. 26.

To take away; to remove. Multiplication of actions upon the case were rare, formerly, and thereby wager of law ousted. Sir M. Hale.

The offense of transporting wool or sheep out of England contrary to the statute formerly existing. Blackstone.

)2) obtained by treating ethyl oxalate with ammonia. It is the acid amide of oxalic acid. Formerly called also oxalamide.

Formerly designating an acid now called perchloric acid. See Perchloric.

gen and muriatic acid, that is, hydrochloric acid. [Archaic.] Oxymuriatic acid, chlorine, formerly so called on the supposition that it was a compound of oxygen and muriatic acid. [Obs.]

Pertaining to, or designating, the phenol formerly called oxyphenic acid, and now oxyphenol and pyrocatechin. See Pyrocatechin.

A duty formerly charged in the port of London on goods imported or exported by aliens, or by denizens who were the sons of aliens.

A serving boy; formerly, a youth attending a person of high degree, especially at courts, as a position of honor and education; now commonly, in England, a youth employed for doin errands, waiting on the door, and similar service in households; in the United States, a boy emploed to wait upon the members of a legislati…

A gold or silver coin, of various kinds and values, formerly current in India. The Madras gold pagoda was worth about three and a half rupees.

One of those who attend the coffin at a funeral; -- so called from the pall being formerly carried by them.

A game formerly common in England, in which a wooden ball was driven with a mallet through an elevated hoop or ring of iron. The name was also given to the mallet used, to the place where the game was played, and to the street, in London, still called Pall Mall. [Written also pail-mail and pell-mell.] Sir K. Digby. Eve…

aining to, or derived from, the castor-oil plant (Ricinus communis, or Palma Christi); -- formerly used to designate an acid now called ricinoleic acid. [Obsoles.]

Formerly, a piece of cloth serving as a saddle; hence, a soft pad beneath a saddletree to prevent chafing.

A shield of basket work formerly used by archers as a shelter from the enemy's missiles.

A tall rushlike plant (Cyperus Papyrus) of the Sedge family, formerly growing in Egypt, and now found in Abyssinia, Syria, Sicily, etc. The stem is triangular and about an inch thick.