Search the Dictionary

A goatsucker; -- so called from the peculiar noise it makes when darting through the air.

One of the external openings communicating with the air tubes or tracheæ of insects, myriapods, and arachnids. They are variable in number, and are usually situated on the sides of the thorax and abdomen, a pair to a segment. These openings are usually elliptical, and capable of being closed. See Illust. under Coleopte…

Air set in motion by breathing; breath; hence, sometimes, life itself. [Obs.] "All of spirit would deprive." Spenser. The mild air, with season moderate, Gently attempered, and disposed eo well, That still it breathed foorth sweet spirit. Spenser.

ve a spiritual character or tendency to; as, to spiritualize soul. This seen in the clear air, and the whole spiritualized by endless recollections, fills the eye and the heart more forcibly than I can find words to say. Carlyle.

Lively; gay; vivid; airy. [Obs.] Sir H. Wotton. The mind of man is of that spirituous, stirring nature, that it is perpetually at work. South.

An instrument for measuring the vital capacity of the lungs, or the volume of air which can be expelled from the chest after the deepest possible inspiration. Cf. Pneumatometer.

ring, the person employed to sponge a pugilist between rounds throwing his sponge in the air in token of defeat. [Cant or Slang] "He was too brave a man to throw up the sponge to fate." Lowell. -- Vegetable sponge. (Bot.) See Loof. -- Velvet sponge, a fine, soft commercial sponge (Spongia equina, variety meandrinifo…

f fine medicated vapor, used either as an application to a diseased part or to charge the air of a room with a disinfectant or a deodorizer.

A form of air pump in which exhaustion is produced by a stream of mercury running down a narrow tube, in the manner of an aspirator; -- named from the inventor.

Sprightlike, or spiritlike; lively; brisk; animated; vigorous; airy; gay; as, a sprightly youth; a sprightly air; a sprightly dance. "Sprightly wit and love inspires." Dryden. The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green. Pope.

as from a cause, motive, reason, or principle. [They found] new hope to spring Out of despair, joy, but with fear yet linked. Milton.

form and swiftness, and for its peculiar habit of springing lighty and suddenly into the air. It has a white dorsal stripe, expanding into a broad patch of white on the rump and tail. Called also springer. [Written also springboc, and springbock.]

A thickly stuffed cushion; especially, one used for the seat of a sofa, couch, or chair; also, a sofa. Punching the squab of chairs and sofas. Dickens. On her large squab you find her spread. Pope.

hollow cylinder of paper, filled with powder or combustible matter, to be thrown into the air while burning, so as to burst there with a crack. Lampoons, like squibs, may make a present blaze. Waller. The making and selling of fireworks, and squibs . . . is punishable. Blackstone.

icly exhibited; the scene of any noted action or carrer; the spot where any remarkable affair occurs. When we are born, we cry that we are come To this stage of fools. Shak. Music and ethereal mirth Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring. Miton.

agnates in the veins of an animal; hence, to become impure or foul by want of motion; as, air stagnates in a close room.

he state of being motionless; as, the stagnation of the blood; the stagnation of water or air; the stagnation of vapors.

Having an air or manner characteristic of the stage; theatrical; artificial; as, a stagy tone or bearing; --chiefly used depreciatively.

combustible matter used in the heading of rockets, in mines, etc., which, exploding of a air, presents a starlike appearance.

To destroy by want of any kind; as, to starve plans by depriving them of proper light and air.