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A flexible fabric made of metal rings interlinked. It was used especially for defensive armor. Chaucer. Chain mail, Coat of mail. See under Chain, and Coat.

One of a tribe of beetles (Malacodermata), with a soft and flexible body, as the fireflies.

omatically, the quantity measured. Dry meter, a gas meter having measuring chambers, with flexible walls, which expand and contract like bellows and measure the gas by filling and emptying. -- W, a gas meter in which the revolution of a chambered drum in water measures the gas passing through it.

An apparatus for smoking tobacco. It has a long flexible tube, and the smoke is drawn through water.

ne sin on the neck of another." W. Perkins. -- Stiff neck, obstinacy in evil or wrong; inflexible obstinacy; contumacy. "I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck." Deut. xxxi. 27. -- To break the neck of, to destroy the main force of. "What they presume to borrow from her sage and virtuous rules... breaks the neck of…

nstrument, consisting of a tube having one end open and the other end covered with a thin flexible membrance to the center of which is attached a small mirror. It is used for exhibiting upon a screen, by means of rays reflected from the mirror, the vibratory motions caused by sounds produced at the open end of the tube…

A disease of the bones, in which they lose their earthy material, and become soft, flexible, and distorted. Also called malacia.

A breastplate for a breast drill. Palette knife, a knife with a very flexible steel blade and no cutting edge, rounded at the end, used by painters to mix colors on the grinding slab or palette. -- To set the palette (Paint.), to lay upon it the required pigments in a certain order, according to the intended use of th…

ts essentially of a resonant vessel, usually of paraboloidal form, closed at one end by a flexible membrane. A stylus attached to some point of the membrane records the movements of the latter, as it vibrates, upon a moving cylinder or plate.

A clamp on a flexible pipe to regulate the flow of a fluid through the pipe.

Capable of being plied, turned, or bent; easy to be bent; flexible; pliant; supple; limber; yielding; as, willow is a pliable plant.

Capable of plying or bending; readily yielding to force or pressure without breaking; flexible; pliable; lithe; limber; plastic; as, a pliant thread; pliant wax. Also used figuratively: Easily influenced for good or evil; tractable; as, a pliant heart. The will was then ductile and pliant to right reason. South.…

A large and flexible panicle of inflorescence resembling a feather, such as is seen in certain large ornamental grasses. Plume bird (Zoöl.), any bird that yields ornamental plumes, especially the species of Epimarchus from New Guinea, and some of the herons and egrets, as the white heron of Florida (Ardea candidissima)…

A long, flexible stick, rod, or branch, which is interwoven with others, between upright posts or stakes, in making a kind of hedge or fence.

One of the long slender flexible stems of several species of palms of the genus Calamus, mostly East Indian, though some are African and Australian. They are exceedingly tough, and are used for walking sticks, wickerwork, chairs and seats of chairs, cords and cordage, and many other purposes.

Capable of being reflected, or thrown back; reflexible.

The quality or capability of being reflexible; as, the reflexibility of the rays of light. Sir I. Newton.

Firm; stiff; unyielding; not pliant; not flexible. Upright beams innumerable Of rigid spears. Milton.

A name given to certain species of willow, especially those which do not have flexible shoots, as Salix caprea, S. cinerea, etc. Sallow thorn (Bot.), a European thorny shrub (Hippophae rhamnoides) much like an Elæagnus. The yellow berries are sometimes used for making jelly, and the plant affords a yellow dye.…

A mineral occurring in steel-gray flexible folia. It contains iron, nickel, and phosphorus, and is found only in meteoric iron.