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A particular appearance or state in a regularly recurring cycle of changes with respect to quantity of illumination or form of enlightened disk; as, the phases of the moon or planets. See Illust. under Moon.

A prefix denoting priority (of time, place, or rank); as, precede, to go before; precursor, a forerunner; prefix, to fix or place before; preëminent eminent before or above others. Pre- is sometimes used intensively, as in prepotent, very potent. [Written also præ-.]

rantus caudatus and Polygonum orientale), with apetalous reddish flowers arranged in long recurved panicled spikes. -- Prince's metal, Prince Rupert's metal. See under Metal. Prince's pine. (Bot.) See Pipsissewa.

A forerunner; a precursor.

Precursory. [R.]

a primary form; exemplar; archetype. They will turn their backs on it, like their great precursor and prototype. Burke.

e development of multiple abscesses throughout the body, and is attended with irregularly recurring chills, fever, profuse sweating, and exhaustion.

Recurring during, or at the end of, each quarter; as, quarterly payments of rent; a quarterly meeting.

eed; speedy in progression; in quick sequence; as, rapid growth; rapid improvement; rapid recurrence; rapid succession.

Recurring in vicissitude; alternate.

To move forward and backward alternately; to recur in vicissitude; to act interchangeably; to alternate. One brawny smith the puffing bellows plies, And draws and blows reciprocating air. Dryden. Reciprocating engine, a steam, air, or gas engine, etc., in which the piston moves back and forth; -- in distinction from a…

Alternate recurrence or action; as, the reciprocation of the sea in the flow and ebb of tides. Sir T. Browne.

r coursing again, along the line of a previous coursing; renewed course; return; retreat; recurence. [Obs.] "Swift recourse of flushing blood." Spenser. Unto my first I will have my recourse. Chaucer. Preventive physic . . . preventeth sickness in the healthy, or the recourse thereof in the valetudinary. Sir T. Browne.…

Having recurring flow and ebb; moving alternately. [Obs.] Drayton.

The burden of a song; a phrase or verse which recurs at the end of each of the separate stanzas or divisions of a poetic composition. We hear the wild refrain. Whittier.

cterium (Spirochæte) in the blood. It is not usually fatal. Called also famine fever, and recurring fever.

That part of a circulating decimal which recurs continually, ad infinitum: -- sometimes indicated by a dot over the first and last repetend is 283.

space measured by the regular return of a revolving body; the period made by the regular recurrence of a measure of time, or by a succession of similar events. "The short revolution of a day." Dryden.

Movement in musical time, with periodical recurrence of accent; the measured beat or pulse which marks the character and expression of the music; symmetry of movement and accent. Moore (Encyc. )

two of its approaches to the sun. -- Periodic function (Math.), a function whose values recur at fixed intervals as the variable uniformly increases. The trigonomertic functions, as sin x, tan x, etc., are periodic functions. Exponential functions are also periodic, having an imaginary period, and the elliptic functi…