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An order of irregular sea urchins, usually having a more or less heart-shaped shell with four or five petal-like ambulacra above. The mouth is edentulous and situated anteriorly, on the under side.

In science, a more or less permanent group of existing things or beings, associated according to attributes, or properties determined by scientific observation.

Not speaking for a time; dumb; mute; silent. Speechless with wonder, and half dead with fear. Addison. -- Speech"less*ly, adv. -- Speech"less*ness, n.

e microspore or (in a few gymnosperms) by spermatozoids. The phrase "flowering plants" is less distinctive than "seed plants," since the conifers, grasses, sedges, oaks, etc., do not produce flowers in the popular sense. For this reason the terms Anthrophyta, Phænogamia, and Panerogamia have been superseded as names of…

it is capable of active motion. In animals, the familiar type is that of a small, more or less ovoid head, with a delicate threadlike cilium, or tail. Called also spermatozoön. In plants the more usual term is antherozoid.

ry. -- Spider crab (Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of maioid crabs having a more or less triangular body and ten long legs. Some of the species grow to great size, as the great Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira Kempferi), measuring sometimes more than fifteen feet across the legs when they are extended. -- Spide…

sail from the pressure of the wind, so that it can be more easily reefed or furled, or to lessen the strain. Spilling line (Naut.), a rope used for spilling, or dislodging, the wind from the belly of a sail. Totten.

Destitute of vigor; wanting life, courage, or fire. A men so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in lock, so woebegone. Shak.

ly a single person or object or group on the stage; leaving the rest of the stage more or less unilluminated; hence, conspicuous public notice. [Cant or Colloq.]

y heavy accents written over or under the notes, or by dots when the performance is to be less distinct and emphatic.

To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate. He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. Rom. iv. 20.

A deposit more or less resembling an inverted stalactite, formed by calcareous water dropping on the floors of caverns; hence, a similar deposit of other material.

Vapid or tasteless from age; having lost its life, spirit, and flavor, from being long kept; as, stale beer.

To stagnate; not to flow; to be motionless. Or the black water of Pomptina stands. Dryden.

A slackening or arrest of the blood current in the vessels, due not to a lessening of the heart's beat, but presumably to some abnormal resistance of the capillary walls. It is one of the phenomena observed in the capillaries in inflammation.

A small statue; -- usually applied to a figure much less than life size, especially when of marble or bronze, or of plaster or clay as a preparation for the marble or bronze, as distinguished from a figure in terra cotta or the like. Cf. Figurine.

t of the atmosphere. -- Low steam, or Low-pressure steam, steam of which the pressure is less than, equal to, or not greatly above, that of the atmosphere. -- Saturated steam, steam at the temperature of the boiling point which corresponds to its pressure; -- sometimes also applied to wet steam. -- Superheated steam…

gainst the sweet blows of love. Sir P. Sidney. Steely iron, a compound of iron containing less than one half of one per cent of carbon.

stair, or a round of a ladder. The breadth of every single step or stair should be never less than one foot. Sir H. Wotton.

tiono make stiff; to make less pliant or flexible; as, to stiffen cloth with starch. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Shak.