Search the Dictionary

sus of the hind legs of certain spiders (Ciniflonidæ), used to curl certain fibers in the construction of their webs.

To cut bend to an upward curve; to construct, as a deck, with an upward curve.

Construction of, or furnishing with, a canal or canals. [R.]

le employed as a standard in photometric measurements; usually, a candle of spermaceti so constructed as to burn at the rate of 120 grains, or 7.8 grams, per hour. -- To curse by bell, book and candle. See under Bell.

The art of cutting, framing, and joining timber, as in the construction of buildings.

of the genus Cassicus, allied to the starlings and orioles, remarkable for its skillfully constructed and suspended nest; the crested oriole. The name is also sometimes given to the piping crow, an Australian bird.

A chain or series of things connected with each other. I have . . . in no case sought to construct those catenæ of games, which it seems now the fashion of commentators to link together. C. J. Ellicott.

Dictated by kindness; favorable; lenient. By a charitable construction it may be a sermon. L. Andrews.

ity in judging of men and their actions; a disposition which inclines men to put the best construction on the words and actions of others. The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable. Buckminster.

A written deed; a charter. Globular chart, a chart constructed on a globular projection. See under Globular. -- Heliographic chart, a map of the sun with its spots. -- Mercator's chart, a chart constructed on the principle of Mercator's projection. See Projection. -- Plane chart, a representation of some part of the…

A decorative construction around the opning of a fireplace.

An instrument for constructing triangles in marine surveying, etc.

ng two celebrated problems of the higher geometry; viz., to trisect a plane angle, and to construct two geometrical means between two given straight lines.

ving a criminal proceeding. -- Civil architecture, the architecture which is employed in constructing buildings for the purposes of civil life, in distinction from military and naval architecture, as private houses, palaces, churches, etc. -- Civil death. (Law.) See under Death. -- Civil engineering. See under Engin…

s moving on a dial plate. Its works are moved by a weight or a spring, and it is often so constructed as to tell the hour by the stroke of a hammer on a bell. It is not adapted, like the watch, to be carried on the person.

The case constructed by any insect to contain its larva or pupa.

Close union or connection of parts; manner of joining; construction. [Obs.] "With comely compass and compacture strong." Spenser.

uring horizontal angles. See Circumferentor. -- Variation compass, a compass of delicate construction, used in observations on the variations of the needle. -- To fetch a compass, to make a circuit.

To put together; to construct; to build. [Obs.] Before that Merlin died, he did intend A brazen wall in compass to compile. Spenser.

To construct by mental labor; to design and execute, or put together, in a manner involving the adaptation of forms of expression to ideas, or to the laws of harmony or proportion; as, to compose a sentence, a sermon, a symphony, or a picture. Let me compose Something in verse as well as prose. Pope. The genius that co…