Search the Dictionary

Holland coast. Dryden. We the Arabian coast do know At distance, when the species blow. Waller. The coast is clear, the danger is over; no enemy in sight. Dryden. Fig.: There are no obstacles. "Seeing that the coast was clear, Zelmane dismissed Musidorus." Sir P. Sidney. Coast guard. (a) A body of men originally emplo…

To exchange; to put or substitute something else in place of, as a smaller penalty, obligation, or payment, for a greater, or a single thing for an aggregate; hence; to lessen; to diminish; as, to commute a sentence of death to one of imprisonment for life; to commute tithes; to commute charges for fares. The sounds wa…

ng beyond compare. Milton. Their small galleys may not hold compare With our tall ships. Waller.

The act or process of removing the dress of ore and of reducing the valuable part to smaller compass, as by currents of air or water.

To make more close, compact, or dense; to compress or concentrate into a smaller compass; to consolidate; to abridge; to epitomize. In what shape they choose, Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure. Milton. The secret course pursued at Brussels and at Madrid may be condensed into the usual formula, dissimulation, proc…

Skillful guidance or management; generalship. Conduct of armies is a prince's art. Waller. Attacked the Spaniards . . . with great impetuosity, but with so little conduct, that his forces were totally routed. Robertson.

orth conquering and to conquer. Rev. vi. 2. The champions resolved to conquer or to die. Waller.

To draw together; to render narrower or smaller; to bind; to cramp; to contract or ause to shrink. Such things as constrict the fibers. Arbuthnot. Membranous organs inclosing a cavity which their contraction constrict. Todd & Bowman.

Contracted or compressed so as to be smaller in certain places or parts than in others.

That which contains anything; a receptacle. [Obs.] The smaller continent which we call a pipkin. Bp. Kennet.

contract; having the power or property of contracting, or of shrinking into shorter or smaller dimensions; as, the contractile tissues. The heart's contractile force. H. Brooke. Each cilium seems to be composed of contractile substance. Hixley. Contractile vacuole (Zoöl.), a pulsating cavity in the interior of a proto…

man, the average size is about 1/2500 of an inch, and they are present in blood in much smaller numbers than the red corpuscles.

A gallery or passageway leading to several apartments of a house.

An underground gallery excavated to intercept and destroy the mining of an enemy.

Any crustacean of the family Astacidæ, resembling the lobster, but smaller, and found in fresh waters. Crawfishes are esteemed very delicate food both in Europe and America. The North American species are numerous and mostly belong to the genus Cambarus. The blind crawfish of the Mamoth Cave is Cambarus pellucidus. The…

A stream of water smaller than a river and larger than a brook. Lesser streams and rivulets are denominated creeks. Goldsmith.

A slow rising of the floor of a gallery, occasioned by the pressure of incumbent strata upon the pillars or sides; a gradual movement of mining ground.

To be or become broken down or in, or pressed into a smaller compass, by external weight or force; as, an eggshell crushes easily.

ancients. It is supposed to have been similar to the modern kettle drum, though perhaps smaller.

principally of carboniCarbonic acid, under Carbonic. -- Damp sheet, a curtain in a mine gallery to direct air currents and prevent accumulation of gas. -- Fire damp, a damp consisting chiefly of light carbureted hydrogen; -- so called from its tendence to explode when mixed with atmospheric air and brought into conta…