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The whole of a system of machines, apparatus, and accessories, when set up and arranged for practical working, as in electric lighting, transmission of power, etc.

me during which a throne is vacant between the death or abdication of a sovereign and the accession of his successor.

wo points or events; as, the interval between the death of Charles I. of England, and the accession of Charles II.

Expressing penetration beyond the outside or surface, or access to the inside, or contents; as, to look into a letter or book; to look into an apartment.

One of the small nodules sometimes found in the neighborhood of the spleen; an accessory or supplementary spleen.

To prevent ingress or access to, or exit from, by fastening the lock or locks of; -- often with up; as, to lock or lock up, a house, jail, room, trunk. etc.

An instrument for determining the size or distance of inaccessible objects by means of two reflectors on a common sextant.

Purely; unmixedly; absolutely. Ulysses was to force forth his access, Though merely naked. Chapman.

To make mild and accessible; to mollify; -- applied to persons. [Obs.] This opinion ... mitigated kings into companions. Burke.

ngs at the same time; common; joint; as, mutual happiness; a mutual effort. Burke. A vast accession of misery and woe from the mutual weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Bentley.

Unprovided with needful or desirable accessories, means of sustenance, etc.; destitute; unaided; bare. Patriots who had exposed themselves for the public, and whom they say now left naked. Milton.

Free of access; not shut up; not closed; affording unobstructed ingress or egress; not impeding or preventing passage; not locked up or covered over; -- applied to passageways; as, an open door, window, road, etc.; also, to inclosed structures or objects; as, open houses, boxes, baskets, bottles, etc.; also, to means o…

; path; channel or course through or by which one passes; way of exit or entrance; way of access or transit. Hence, a common avenue to various apartments in a building; a hall; a corridor. And with his pointed dart Explores the nearest passage to his heart. Dryden. The Persian army had advanced into the . . . passages…

piece, as a coupling, an elbow, a valve, etc., used for connecting lengths of pipe or as accessory to a pipe. -- Pipe office, an ancient office in the Court of Exchequer, in which the clerk of the pipe made out leases of crown lands, accounts of cheriffs, etc. [Eng.] -- Pipe tree (Bot.), the lilac and the mock orange…

s, especially among the Eastern Roman emperors, by which a younger son, if born after the accession of his father to the throne, was preferred to an elder son who was not so born. Sir T. Palgrave.

action; to prevent or hinder by necessary consequence or implication; to deter action of, access to, employment of, etc.; to render ineffectual; to obviate by anticipation. This much will obviate and preclude the objections. Bentley.

The act of preventing or hindering; obstruction of action, access, or approach; thwarting. South. Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention. Shak.

Tending to defeat or hinder; obviating; preventing the access of; as, a medicine preventive of disease. Physic is either curative or preventive. Sir T. Browne. Preventive service, the duty performed by the armed police in guarding the coast against smuggling. [Eng]

chief actor in a crime, or an abettor who is present at it, - - as distinguished from an accessory.

Accession of good; valuable results; useful consequences; benefit; avail; gain; as, an office of profit, This I speak for your own profit. 1 Cor. vii. 35. If you dare do yourself a profit and a right. Shak.