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ian plant (Mantisia saltatoria) of the Ginger family, sometimes seen in hothouses. It has curious flowers which have some resemblance to a ballet dancer, whence the popular name. Called also dancing girls. -- Opera glass, a short telescope with concave eye lenses of low power, usually made double, that is, with a tube…

n, and normally three petals and three sepals, all adherent to the ovary. The flowers are curiously shaped, often resembling insects, the odd or lower petal (called the lip) being unlike the others, and sometimes of a strange and unexpected appearance. About one hundred species occur in the United States, but several t…

us, allied to the creepers. They inhabit South America and the West Indies, and construct curious oven-shaped nests.

lm alone. Shak. Molucca palm (Bot.), a labiate herb from Asia (Molucella lævis), having a curious cup-shaped calyx. -- Palm cabbage, the terminal bud of a cabbage palm, used as food. -- Palm cat (Zoöl.), the common paradoxure. -- Palm crab (Zoöl.), the purse crab. -- Palm oil, a vegetable oil, obtained from the fru…

powers of mimicry and its ability to articulate words. Its color is glossy black, with a curious tuft of long, curly, white feathers on each side of the throat. It is often kept as a cage bird.

To look narrowly or curiously or intently; to peep; as, the peering day. Milton. Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads. Shak. As if through a dungeon grate he peered. Coleridge.

e number of long, silky fibers, which have been used in manufacturing woven fabrics, as a curiosity.

tion by causing resentment or jealousy; to stimulate; to prick; as, to pique ambition, or curiosity. Prior.

The quality or state of being prurient. The pruriency of curious ears. Burke. There is a prurience in the speech of some. Cowper.

Uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious curiosity or propensity; lustful. -- Pru"ri*ent*ly, adv. The eye of the vain and prurient is darting from object to object of illicit attraction. I. Taylor.

narrowly; to gaze; to inspect closely; to attempt to discover something by a scrutinizing curiosity; -- often implying reproach. " To pry upon the stars." Chaucer. Watch thou and wake when others be asleep, To pry into the secrets of the state. Shak.

The act of pursuing or prosecuting; a following out or after. Sermons are not like curious inquiries after new nothings, but pursuances of old truths. Jer. Taylor.

Curious and fanciful; affected; odd; whimsical; antique; archaic; singular; unusual; as, quaint architecture; a quaint expression. Some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry. Macaulay. An old, long-faced, long-bodied servant in quaint livery. W. Irving.

medicine taken in quantities, that is, in large quantities. The quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up during many months of desultory, but not unprofitable, study. Macaulay. Quantity of estate (Law), its time of continuance, or degree of interest, as in fee, for life, or for years. Wharto…

Unquestioning; incurious. [R.]

ecially, the hawthorn, or other plants used in making a living hedge. The works . . . are curiously hedged with quick. Evelyn.

One who is curious to know everything that passes; one who knows, or pretends to know, all that is going on. "The idle stories of quidnuncs." Motley.

Not restricted to a particular subject; discussed for curiosity or entertainment. -- Quod`li*bet"ic*al*ly, adv.

Withdrawn; secluded. [R.] "Comfortably recessed from curious impertinents." Miss Edgeworth. Recessed arch (Arch.), one of a series of arches constructed one within another so as to correspond with splayed jambs of a doorway, or the like.

directions. -- Screw alley. See Shaft alley, under Shaft. -- Screw bean. (Bot.) (a) The curious spirally coiled pod of a leguminous tree (Prosopis pubescens) growing from Texas to California. It is used for fodder, and ground into meal by the Indians. (b) The tree itself. Its heavy hard wood is used for fuel, for fen…