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A movable, decorative member in metal, carved wood, or, commonly, in rich stuff or in embroidery, covering the front of the altar. Frontals are usually changed according to the different ceremonies.

Movable goods which may be valued by weight or measure, in contradistinction from those which must be judged of individually. Jamieson.

the wall of a city, of an inclosed field or place, or of a grand edifice, etc.; also, the movable structure of timber, metal, etc., by which the passage can be closed.

The movable part of a stuffing box by which the packing is compressed; -- sometimes called a follower. See Illust. of Stuffing box, under Stuffing.

ibed by any point attached to a curve that slips continuously on another fixed curve, the movable curve having no rotation at any instant.

A form of union or immovable articulation where a hard part is received into the cavity of a bone, as the teeth into the jaws.

tals, or the inclination of planes. Contact, or Hand, goniometer, a goniometer having two movable arms (ab, cd), between which (at ab) the faces of the crystals are placed. These arms turn about a fixed point, which is the center of the graduated circle or semicircle upon which the angle is read off. -- Reflecting gon…

nize the civil year with the solar, and also the regulation of the time of Easter and the movable feasts by means of epochs. See Gregorian year (below). -- Gregorian chant (Mus.), plain song, or canto fermo, a kind of unisonous music, according to the eight celebrated church modes, as arranged and prescribed by Pope G…

nt for measuring the harmonic relations of sounds. It is often a monochord furnished with movable bridges.

A vessel whose deck consists almost wholly of movable hatches; -- used mostly in the fisheries.

Any furniture, movable, or personal chattel, which by law or special custom descends to the heir along with the inheritance; any piece of personal property that has been in a family for several generations. Woe to him whose daring hand profanes The honored heirlooms of his ancestors. Moir.

The state, character, or privileges of an heir; right of inheriting. Heirship movables, certain kinds of movables which the heir is entitled to take, besides the heritable estate. [Scot.]

pening in the floor, through which it falls. -- Hopper closet, a water-closet, without a movable pan, in which the receptacle is a funnel standing on a draintrap. -- Hopper cock, a faucet or valve for flushing the hopper of a water-closet.

A movable frame of wattled twigs, osiers, or withes and stakes, or sometimes of iron, used for inclosing land, for folding sheep and cattle, for gates, etc.; also, in fortification, used as revetments, and for other purposes.

Incapable of being moved; immovable; fixed; stable. Prof. Shedd.

To make immovable; in surgery, to make immovable (a naturally mobile part, as a joint) by the use of splints, or stiffened bandages.

The quality or state of being immovable; fixedness; steadfastness; as, immovability of a heavy body; immovability of purpose.

In an immovable manner.

cture (Surg.), a fracture in which the fragments are driven into each other so as to be immovable.

The driving of one fragment of bone into another so that the fragments are not movable upon each other; as, impaction of the skull or of the hip.