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A wire forming part of a main circuit and returning to the point from which it starts.

Nothing; no points scored on one side; -- used in counting score at tennis, etc. He won the match by three sets to love. The Field.

line on which a ship sails when her course is always in the direction of one and the same point of the compass.

It is considered by seamen as only fit to be used by lubbers. Totten. -- Lubber's line, point, or mark, a line or point in the compass case indicating the head of the ship, and consequently the course which the ship is steering.

The farthest point of the moon's northing and southing, in its monthly revolution. [Obs.]

alled also club mosses) with branching stems, and small, crowded, one-nerved, and usually pointed leaves.

A flat-bottomed boat with a pointed prow and square stern, using oars or sails or both, used esp. on the upper Great Lakes and their tributaries.

has the property of attracting iron and some of its ores, and, when freely suspended, of pointing to the poles; -- called also natural magnet. Dinocrates began to make the arched roof of the temple of Arsinoë all of magnet, or this loadstone. Holland. Two magnets, heaven and earth, allure to bliss, The larger loadston…

agnetic needle, a slender bar of steel, magnetized and suspended at its center on a sharp-pointed pivot, or by a delicate fiber, so that it may take freely the direction of the magnetic meridian. It constitutes the essential part of a compass, such as the mariner's and the surveyor's. -- Magnetic poles, the two points…

ntagious disease, transmitted to man from animals, characterized by the formation, at the point of reception of the virus, of a vesicle or pustule which first enlarges and then breaks down into an unhealthy ulcer. It is marked by profound exhaustion and usually fatal. Called also charbon, and sometimes, improperly, ant…

A euphorbiaceous tree (Hippomane Mancinella) of tropical America, having a poisonous and blistering milky juice, and poisonous acrid fruit somewhat resembling an apple. Bastard manchineel, a tree (Cameraria latifolia) of the East Indies, having similar poisonous properties. Lindley.

A visible sign or impression made or left upon anything; esp., a line, point, stamp, figure, or the like, drawn or impressed, so as to attract the attention and convey some information or intimation; a token; a trace. The Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. Gen. iv. 15.

ng weakened by fretting. Marline spike, Marling spike (Naut.), an iron tool tapering to a point, used to separate the strands of a rope in splicing and in marling. It has an eye in the thick end to which a lanyard is attached. See Fid. [Written also marlin spike] -- Marline-spike bird. Etym: [The name alludes to the lo…

, a name given to several varieties of squash, esp. to the Boston marrow, an ovoid fruit, pointed at both ends, and with reddish yellow flesh, and to the vegetable marrow, a variety of an ovoid form, and having a soft texture and fine grain resembling marrow. -- Spinal marrow. (Anat.) See Spinal cord, under Spinal.…

A weapon resembling a hammer, often having one side of the head pointed; -- used by horsemen in the Middle Ages to break armor. Fairholt.

clined to, war; warlike; brave. But peaceful kings, o'er martial people set, Each other's poise and counterbalance are. Dryden.

Of or relating to the Masora, or to its authors. Masoretic points and accents, the vowel points and accents of the Hebrew text of the Bible, of which the first mention is in the Masora.

The head has two long steel blades, one like an adz and the other like a narrow ax or the point of a pickax. 'T is you must dig with mattock and with spade. Shak.

lue attained by a quantity which first increases and then begins to decrease; the highest point or degree; -- opposed to Ant: minimum. Good legislation is the art of conducting a nation to the maximum of happiness, and the minimum of misery. P. Colquhoun. Maximum thermometer, a thermometer that registers the highest de…

hich is mean, or intermediate, between two extremes of place, time, or number; the middle point or place; middle rate or degree; mediocrity; medium; absence of extremes or excess; moderation; measure. But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude. Bacon. There is a…