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, or peculiar part, of man's constitution by which he has knowledge through the medium or instrumentality of the bodily organs; the act of apperhending material objects or qualities through the senses; -- distinguished from conception. Sir W. Hamilton. Matter hath no life nor perception, and is not conscious of its own…

To bore through; to pierce through with a pointed instrument; to make a hole or holes through by boring or piercing; to pierce or penetrate the surface of. Bacon.

any business; esp., to represent sometimes by action; to act a part; to play on a musical instrument; as, the players perform poorly; the musician performs on the organ.

An instrument for determining the extent and shape of the field of vision.

An instrument for obtaining, and transferring to a picture, the points and outlines of objects, so as to represent them in their proper geometrical relations as viewed from some one point.

The act of punching or piercing with a pointed instrument; as, pertusion of a vein. [R.] Arbuthnot.

An instrument or device to be introduced into and worn in the vagina, to support the uterus, or remedy a malposition.

An instrument for studying the mechanism of accommodation.

An optical instrument or toy, resembling the phenakistoscope, and illustrating the same principle; -- called also phantasmascope.

d all the rest of the glass is opaque black. The screen is between the spectators and the instrument, and the figures are often made to appear as in motion, or to merge into one another.

An instrument for incising or scarifying the tonsils, etc.

Chaucer. Philosopher's stone, an imaginary stone which the alchemists formerly sought as instrument of converting the baser metals into gold.

An instrument by means of which a sound can be made to produce a visible trace or record of itself. It consists essentially of a resonant vessel, usually of paraboloidal form, closed at one end by a flexible membrane. A stylus attached to some point of the membrane records the movements of the latter, as it vibrates, u…

An instrument for studying the motions of sounding bodies by optical means. It consists of a tube across the end of which is stretched a film of soap solution thin enough to give colored bands, the form and position of which are affected by sonorous vibrations.

An instrument for the mechanical registration and reproduction of audible sounds, as articulate speech, etc. It consists of a rotating cylinder or disk covered with some material easily indented, as tinfoil, wax, paraffin, etc., above which is a thin plate carrying a stylus. As the plate vibrates under the influence of…

An instrument for measuring sounds, as to their intensity, or the frequency of the vibrations.

An instrument in which motion is produced by the vibrations of a sounding body.

An instrument for observing or exhibiting the motions or properties of sounding bodies; especially, an apparatus invented by König for testing the quality of musical strings.

(Astron.) An instrument for the photographic recording of star transits.

An instrument for determining the sensibility of the plates employed in photographic processes to luminous rays.