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The principal or most important spring in a piece of mechanism, especially the moving spring of a watch or clock or the spring in a gunlock which impels the hammer. Hence: The chief or most powerful motive; the efficient cause of action.

Adapted for entering another corresponding piece (the female piece) which is hollow and which it fits; as, a male gauge, for gauging the size or shape of a hole; a male screw, etc. Male berry (Bot.), a kind of coffee. See Pea berry. -- Male fern (Bot.), a fern of the genus Aspidium (A. Filixmas), used in medicine as a…

One of the hard lateral pieces of the mastax of Rotifera. See Mastax.

A shapeless piece; a fragment. [Obs.]

One of the piece with which certain games, as chess or draughts, are played.

To mutilate or injure, in making, doing, or pertaining; as, to mangle a piece of music or a recitation. To mangle a play or a novel. Swift.

nalogous in apparatus to the Bessemer process for decarbonizing cast iron. So called from Pierre Manhès, a French metallurgist, who invented it.

Either one of two handles on the back of a piece of ordnance.

A model of the human body, made of papier-mache or other material, commonly in detachable pieces, for exhibiting the different parts and organs, their relative position, etc.

A piece of copper of the shape of a horseshoe, used as money by certain tribes of the west coast of Africa. Simmonds.

c handing of a weapon; as, the manual of arms; the manual of the sword; the manual of the piece (cannon, mortar, etc.).

A piece of music designed or fitted to accompany and guide the movement of troops; a piece of music in the march form. The drums presently striking up a march. Knolles. To make a march, (Card Playing), to take all the tricks of a hand, in the game of euchre.

Inlaid work; work inlaid with pieces of wood, shells, ivory, and the like, of several colors.

A pole, or long, strong, round piece of timber, or spar, set upright in a boat or vessel, to sustain the sails, yards, rigging, etc. A mast may also consist of several pieces of timber united by iron bands, or of a hollow pillar of iron or steel. The tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great am…

The pharynx of a rotifer. It usually contains four horny pieces. The two central ones form the incus, against which the mallei, or lateral ones, work so as to crush the food.

A machine for cutting meat into fine pieces for toothless people; also, a machine for cutting leather, India rubber, or similar tough substances, into fine pieces, in some processes of manufacture.

A mediator; a go-between. [Obs.] Piers Plowman. He wooeth her by means and by brokage. Chaucer. By all means, certainly; without fail; as, go, by all means. -- By any means, in any way; possibly; at all. If by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. Phil. iii. ll. -- By no means, or By no manner of m…

To result, or turn out, on measuring; as, the grain measures well; the pieces measure unequally.

A piece of metal in the form of a coin, struck with a device, and intended to preserve the remembrance of a notable event or an illustrious person, or to serve as a reward.

A piece of melody; a song or tune, -- as opposed to recitative or musical declamation.