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the southern United States and West Indies; -- called also saber fish, silver eel, and, improperly, swordfish.

A prefix which formerly properly indicated the second in a regular series of compound in the series, and not to its composition, but which is now generally employed in the same sense as bi- or di-, although little used.

Improperly, an heraldic bearing. Knights-errant used to distinguish themselves by devices on their shields. Addison. A banner with this strange device -Excelsior. Longfellow.

The act of giving or disposing of real estate by will; -- sometimes improperly applied to a bequest of personal estate.

the district in which a bishop exercises his ecclesiastical authority. [Frequently, but improperly, spelt diocess.]

an uncontrollable craving (often periodic) for drink, esp. for alcoholic liquors; also improperly used to denote acute and chronic alcoholism.

ion of the marriage contract by a court or other body having competent authority. This is properly a divorce, and called, technically, divorce a vinculo matrimonii. "from the bond of matrimony."

Your sins will dog you, pursue you. Burroughs. Eager ill-bred petitioners, who do not so properly supplicate as hunt the person whom they address to, dogging him from place to place, till they even extort an answer to their rude requests. South.

To proportion properly (a medicine), with reference to the patient or the disease; to form into suitable doses.

In a due, fit, or becoming manner; as it (anything) ought to be; properly; regularly.

One of two; the one or the other; -- properly used of two things, but sometimes of a larger number, for any one. Lepidus flatters both, Of both is flattered; but he neither loves, Nor either cares for him. Shak. Scarce a palm of ground could be gotten by either of the three. Bacon. There have been three talkers in Grea…

metimes used to express the degree of electrification as equivalent to potential, or more properly difference of potential.

trument for measuring the quantity or intensity of electricity; also, sometimes, and less properly, applied to an instrument which indicates the presence of electricity (usually called an electroscope). Balance electrometer. See under Balance.

glicize; hence, to interpret; to explain. Those gracious acts . . . may be Englished more properly, acts of fear and dissimulation. Milton. Caxton does not care to alter the French forms and words in the book which he was Englishing. T. L. K. Oliphant.

An adjective expressing some quality, attribute, or relation, that is properly or specially appropriate to a person or thing; as, a just man; a verdant lawn. A prince [Henry III.] to whom the epithet "worthless" seems best applicable. Hallam.

A system of jurisprudence, supplemental to law, properly so called, and complemental of it. Equity had been gradually shaping itself into a refined science which no human faculties could master without long and intense application. Macaulay.

The latter part and close of the day, and the beginning of darkness or night; properly, the decline of the day, or of the sum. In the ascending scale Of heaven, the stars that usher evening rose. Milton.

, but properly a participle. With rejection or exception of; excluding; except. "Excepting your worship's presence." Shak. No one was ever yet made utterly miserable, excepting by himself. Lubbock.

The organ of sight or vision. In man, and the vertebrates generally, it is properly the movable ball or globe in the orbit, but the term often includes the adjacent parts. In most invertebrates the years are immovable ocelli, or compound eyes made up of numerous ocelli. See Ocellus. Description of illustration: a b Con…

The assertion or statement of a thing done or existing; sometimes, even when false, improperly put, by a transfer of meaning, for the thing done, or supposed to be done; a thing supposed or asserted to be done; as, history abounds with false facts. I do not grant the fact. De Foe. This reasoning is founded upon a fact…