Search the Dictionary

The name of several cereal and forage grasses which bear an abundance of small roundish grains. The common millets of Germany and Southern Europe are Panicum miliaceum, and Setaria Italica.

Having, or consisting of, many grains.

To promote growth; to furnish nutriment. Grains and roots nourish more than their leaves. Bacon.

A weight of twelve grains; or, according to some, of ten grains, or half a scruple. [Written also obol.]

A variety of limestone, consisting of small round grains, resembling the roe of a fish. It sometimes constitutes extensive beds, as in the European Jurassic. See the Chart of Geology.

hurchyard or cemetery. [Obs.] Oxf. Gloss. Fool's paradise. See under Fool, and Limbo. -- Grains of paradise. (Bot.) See Melequeta pepper, under Pepper. -- Paradise bird. (Zoöl.) Same as Bird of paradise. Among the most beautiful species are the superb (Lophorina superba); the magnificent (Diphyllodes magnifica); and…

The envelope of the coffee grains, inside the pulp. Parchment paper. See Papyrine.

See under Ground. -- Pearl barley, kernels of barley, ground so as to form small, round grains. -- Pearl diver, one who dives for pearl oysters. -- Pearl edge, an edge of small loops on the side of some kinds of ribbon; also, a narrow kind of thread edging to be sewed on lace. -- Pearl eye, cataract. [R.] -- Pearl…

ebble; -- so called by opticians. Pebble powder, slow-burning gunpowder, in large cubical grains. -- Scotch pebble, varieties of quartz, as agate, chalcedony, etc., obtained from cavities in amygdaloid.

A troy weight containing twenty-four grains, or the twentieth part of an ounce; as, a pennyweight of gold or of arsenic. It was anciently the weight of a silver penny, whence the name.

A natural alloy of platinum and iridium occurring in grayish metallic rounded or cubical grains with platinum.

Pop corn. (a) Corn, or maize, of peculiar excellence for popping; especially, a kind the grains of which are small and compact. (b) Popped corn; which has been popped.

ated. See Diodon, and Globefish. -- Porcupine grass (Bot.), a grass (Stipa spartea) with grains bearing a stout twisted awn, which, by coiling and uncoiling through changes in moisture, propels the sharp-pointed and barbellate grain into the wool and flesh of sheep. It is found from Illinois westward. See Illustration…

acrid; as, a pungent spice. Pungent radish biting infant's tongue. Shenstone. The pungent grains of titillating dust. Pope.

the organ, in which a cross section shows scattered gray translucent bodies looking like grains of sago.

, esp. of siliceous stone, but not reduced to dust; comminuted stone in the form of loose grains, which are not coherent when wet. That finer matter, called sand, is no other than very small pebbles. Woodsward.

To brush the hairs of fuzz from, as wheat grains, in the process of high milling. Knight.

A weight of twenty grains; the third part of a dram.

ders, effervescing salts, consisting of two separate powders, one of which contains forty grains of sodium bicarbonate mixed with two drachms of RochellRochelle powders. -- Seidlitz water, a natural water from Seidlitz, containing magnesium, sodium, calcium, and potassium sulphates, with calcium carbonate and a little…

Composed of hard, angular grains; gritty; as, sharp sand. Moxon.