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A form of French versification, sometimes imitated in English, in which three or four rhymes recur through three stanzas of eight or ten lines each, the stanzas concluding with a refrain, and the whole poem with an envoy.

A leap of a horse, as between two pillars, or upon a straight line, so that when his four feet are in the air, he shows only the shoes of his hind feet, without jerking out.

A kind of banjo, with a short neck, tuned a fourth higher than the common banjo; -- popularly so called.

er fish ( Barbus vulgaris) found in many European rivers. Its upper jaw is furnished with four barbels.

A four-wheeled carriage, with a falling top, a seat on the outside for the driver, and two double seats on the inside arranged so that the sitters on the front seat face those on the back seat.

A movable roof sliding on four posts, to cover hay, straw, etc. [Local, U.S.]

A diminutive of the bar, having one fourth its width.

Any one of the four bounds which mark the circuit of the infield. Altern base. See under Altern. -- Attic base. (Arch.) See under Attic. -- Base course. (Arch.) (a) The first or lower course of a foundation wall, made of large stones of a mass of concrete; -- called also foundation course. (b) The architectural membe…

A game of ball, so called from the bases or bounds ( four in number) which designate the circuit which each player must endeavor to make after striking the ball.

own with a reed, and resembling a clarinet, but of much greater compass, embracing nearly four octaves.

or were pushed out in their Bath chairs." Dickens. -- Bath metal, an alloy consisting of four and a half ounces of zinc and one pound of copper. -- Bath note, a folded writing paper, 8 1/2 by 14 inches. -- Bath stone, a species of limestone (oölite) found near Bath, used for building.

ing to the locality; in Turkey, the greater batman is about 157 pounds, the lesser only a fourth of this; at Aleppo and Smyrna, the batman is 17 pounds. Simmonds.

ordinary with its ends cut off, borne sinister as a mark of bastardy, and containing one fourth in breadth of the bend sinister; -- called also bastard bar. See Bend sinister.

of silver, formerly current in some parts of Germany and Switzerland. It was worth about four cents.

Barley; the six-rowed barley or the four-rowed barley, commonly the former (Hord. vulgare). [Obs. except in North of Eng. and Scot.]

of any member of a building which rests upon its supports; as, a lintel or beam may have four inches of bearing upon the wall.

Any four-footed animal, that may be used for labor, food, or sport; as, a beast of burden. A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast. Prov. xii. 10.

One of the four standards that support a bedstead or the canopy over a bedstead.

Any insect of the order Coleoptera, having four wings, the outer pair being stiff cases for covering the others when they are folded up. See Coleoptera. Beetle mite (Zoöl.), one of many species of mites, of the family Oribatidæ, parasitic on beetles. -- Black beetle, the common large black cockroach (Blatta orientalis…

A Brazilian leaf hopper (Bocydium tintinnabuliferum), remarkable for the four bell-shaped appendages of its thorax.