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Never having been married; not having had sexual intercourse; virgin; -- said usually of the woman, but sometimes of the man; as, a maiden aunt. "A surprising old maiden lady." Thackeray.

sel with a groove in it, used by calkers of ships to finish the seams after the oakum has been driven in.

One of a tribe of beetles (Malacodermata), with a soft and flexible body, as the fireflies.

A large heavy wooden beetle; a mallet for driving anything with force; a maul. Addison.

h a short handle, -- used esp. for driving a tool, as a chisel or the like; also, a light beetle with a long handle, -- used in playing croquet.

in water and dried in a kiln, thus forcing germination until the saccharine principle has been evolved. It is used in brewing and in the distillation of whisky.

which one employs another to manage any business for him. By the Roman law, it must have been gratuitous. Erskine.

A kind of large field beet (B. macrorhiza), used as food for cattle, -- by some considered a mere variety of the ordinary beet. See Beet. [Written also mangold-wurzel.]

s, is natural . . . . But a mannerism which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive. Macaulay.

. Paul at the conclusion of his first Epistle to the Corinthians (xvi. 22). This word has been used in anathematizing persons for great crimes; as much as to say, "May the Lord come quickly to take vengeance of thy crimes." See Anathema maranatha, under Anathema.

s his wife, or (a woman) to a man as her husband. See the Note to def. 4. A woman who had been married to her twenty-fifth husband, and being now a widow, was prohibited to marry. Evelyn.

s Mustela, closely allied to the sable. Among the more important species are the European beech, or stone, marten (Mustela foina); the pine marten (M. martes); and the American marten, or sable (M. Americana), which some zoölogists consider only a variety of the Russian sable.

The act of doubling, at each stake, that which has been lost on the preceding stake; also, the sum so risked; -- metaphorically derived from the bifurcation of the martingale of a harness. [Cant] Thackeray.

That which causes wonder; a prodigy; a miracle. I will do marvels such as have not been done. Ex. xxxiv. 10. Nature's sweet marvel undefiled. Emerson.

A member of the fraternity of Freemasons. See Freemason. Mason bee (Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of solitary bees of the genus Osmia. They construct curious nests of hardened mud and sand. -- Mason moth (Zoöl.), any moth whose larva constructs an earthen cocoon under the soil. -- Mason shell (Zoöl.), a marine…

The fruit of the oak and beech, or other forest trees; nuts; acorns. Oak mast, and beech, . . . they eat. Chapman. Swine under an oak filling themselves with the mast. South.

for the mastery is temperate in all things. 1 Cor. ix. 25. O, but to have gulled him Had been a mastery. B. Jonson.

Bearing no mast; as, a mastless oak or beech. Dryden.

f materialists; materialistic views and tenets. The irregular fears of a future state had been supplanted by the materialism of Epicurus. Buckminster.

or anything to be set in type; copy; also, type set up and ready to be used, or which has been used, in printing. Dead matter (Print.), type which has been used, or which is not to be used, in printing, and is ready for distribution. -- Live matter (Print.), type set up, but not yet printed from. -- Matter in bar, Ma…