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The curved channel in which a breast wheel turns. It is closely adapted to the curve of the wheel through about a quarter of its circumference, and prevents the escape of the water until it has spent its force upon the wheel. See Breast wheel.

A curved mark [ ] used commonly to indicate the short quantity of a vowel.

tube, as the bulb of a thermometer, which may be of any form, as spherical, cylindrical, curved, etc. Tomlinson.

A curvet; a leap. See Capriole. The cabrioles which his charger exhibited. Sir W. Scott.

A curved ridge in the floor of the leteral ventricle of the brain; the calcar avis, hippocampus minor, or ergot.

An instrument, usually resembling a pair of dividers or compasses with curved legs, for measuring the diameter or thickness of bodies, as of work shaped in a lathe or planer, timber, masts, shot, etc.; or the bore of firearms, tubes, etc.; -- called also caliper compasses, or caliber compasses. Caliper square, a draugh…

A curved wedge, movable about an axis, used for forcing or clamping two pieces together.

arch (Arch.), an arch whose intrados, though apparently straight, has a slightly concave curve upward. -- Camber beam (Arch.), a beam whose under side has a concave curve upward.

Having the ovules and seeds so curved, or bent down upon themselves, that the ends of the embryo are brought close together.

The curve or tracing made by a cardiograph.

An algebraic curve, so called from its resemblance to a heart.

xpansion of air in changing the specific gravity of bodies. -- Cartesion oval (Geom.), a curve such that, for any point of the curve mr + m'r' = c, where r and r' are the distances of the point from the two foci and m, m' and c are constant; -- used by Descartes.

A map showing geographically, by shades or curves, statistics of various kinds; a statistical map.

Relating to, or having the properties of, a caustic curve formed by reflection. See Caustic, a. Nichol.

ed by, that form of pulse tracing, or sphygmogram, in which the descending portion of the curve is marked by secondary elevations due to two or more expansions of the artery in the same beat. -- Ca*tac"rotism (#), n.

The curve formed by a rope or chain of uniform density and perfect flexibility, hanging freely between two points of suspension, not in the same vertical line.

Relating to a chain; like a chain; as, a catenary curve.

A caustic curve or caustic surface.

Severe; satirical; sharp; as, a caustic remark. Caustic curve (Optics), a curve to which the ray of light, reflected or refracted by another curve, are tangents, the reflecting or refracting curve and the luminous point being in one plane. -- Caustic lime. See under Lime. -- Caustic potash, Caustic soda (Chem.), the…

In two figures having relative motion, one of the two curves which are the loci of the instantaneous center.