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ecticut; -- a nickname alluding to the moral character of its inhabitants, implied by the rigid laws (see Blue laws) of the early period.

Not tense, firm, or rigid; loose; slack; as, a lax bandage; lax fiber. The flesh of that sort of fish being lax and spongy. Ray.

A type of bridge for small spans in which the floor girders are rigidly secured at their extremities to supporting steel legs, driven into the round as piling, or resting on mudsills.

A rigid piece which is capable of turning about one point, or axis (the fulcrum), and in which are two or more other points where forces are applied; -- used for transmitting and modifying force and motion. Specif., a bar of metal, wood, or other rigid substance, used to exert a pressure, or sustain a weight, at one po…

Not strict in matters of morality; not rigid according to some standard of right. The loose morality which he had learned. Sir W. Scott.

In military language, a strict disciplinarian; in general, one who lays stress on a rigid adherence to the details of discipline, or to forms and fixed methods. [Hence, the word is commonly employed in a depreciatory sense.]

The principles or practices of a martinet; rigid adherence to discipline, etc.

Easily worked or penetrated; not hard or rigid; as, a mellow soil. "Mellow glebe." Drayton

Any cpecies of raptorial birds of the family Strigidæ. They have large eyes and ears, and a conspicuous circle of feathers around each eye. They are mostly nocturnal in their habits.

e. See def. 3, above. -- Pad tree (Harness Making), a piece of wood or metal which gives rigidity and shape to a harness pad. Knight.

ndian plant (Bromelia Pinguin) of the Pineapple family; also, the plant itself, which has rigid, pointed, and spiny-toothed leaves, and is used for hedges. [Written also pinguin.] Arctic penguin (Zoöl.), the great auk. See Auk.

Rigid observance of external forms of religion, without genuine piety; hypocrisy in religion; a censorious, self-righteous spirit in matters of morals or manners. "A piece of pharisaism." Hammond.

-- Pitch pine (Bot.), any one of several species of pine, yielding pitch, esp. the Pinus rigida of North America.

After death; as, post-mortem rigidity. Post-mortem examination (Med.), an examination of the body made after the death of the patient; an autopsy.

An overprecise person; one rigidly or ceremoniously exact in the observance of rules; a formalist; -- formerly applied to the English Puritans. The most dissolute cavaliers stood aghast at the dissoluteness of the emancipated precisian. Macaulay.

A defect of vision consequent upon advancing age. It is due to rigidity of the crystalline lens, which producepresbytia.

More or less permanent erection and rigidity of the penis, with or without sexual desire.

r, as a decree or sentence; as, to pronounce sentence of death. Sternly he pronounced The rigid interdiction. Milton.

A number of fishhooks rigidly fastened back to be pulled through the water to catch fish.

Rigid purity; the quality of being affectedly pure or nice, especially in the choice of language; over-solicitude as to purity. "His political purism." De Quincey. The English language, however, . . . had even already become too thoroughly and essentially a mixed tongue for his doctrine of purism to be admitted to the…