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Precise in observance of legal or religious requirements; strict; overscrupulous; rigid; -- often used by way of reproach or contempt. Paritanical circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded. Macaulay. He had all the puritanic traits, both good and evil. Hawthorne.

inclosure Gov. of Tongue. Well-directed intentions, whose rationalities will never bear a rigid examination. Sir T. Browne.

To make lax or loose; to make less close, firm, rigid, tense, or the like; to slacken; to loosen; to open; as, to relax a rope or cord; to relax the muscles or sinews. Horror . . . all his joints relaxed. Milton. Nor served it to relax their serried files. Milton.

To become less rigid or hard; to yield; to dissolve; to melt; to deliquesce. [Obs.] He stirred the coals till relente gan The wax again the fire. Chaucer. [Salt of tartar] placed in a cellar will . . . begin to relent. Boyle. When opening buds salute the welcome day, And earth, relenting, feels the genial ray. Pope.…

ent and bolted longitudinally to the ribs of a vessel, to hold them in position, and give rigidity to the framework. Rib-band lines, oblique longitudinal sectionss of the hull of a vessel. Knight.

Rigidity; stiffness.

Rigidity in principle or practice; strictness; -- opposed to laxity.

Any regular course of action or procedure rigidly adhered to by the mere force of habit.

-- Hard rubber, a kind of vulcanized caoutchouc which nearly resembles horn in texture, rigidity, etc. -- India rubber, caoutchouc. See Caoutchouc. -- Rubber cloth, cloth covered with caoutchouc for excluding water or moisture. -- Rubber dam (Dentistry), a shield of thin sheet rubber clasped around a tooth to excl…

onement. Die he, or justice must; unless or him Some other, able, and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death. Milton.

rum ( Etym: [NL., of the newborn], an affection characterized by a peculiar hardening and rigidity of the cutaneous and subcutaneous tissues in the newly born. It is usually fatal. Called also skinbound disease.

A disease of adults, characterized by a diffuse rigidity and hardness of the skin.

pitch is associated (cf. 5th Pitch, 10 (b)). It is used to express the displacement of a rigid body, which may always be made to consist of a rotation about an axis combined with a translation parallel to that axis.

To inculcate rigid rules. [R.] Chesterfield.

hand; to determine; hence, to make unyielding or obstinate; to render stiff, unpliant, or rigid; as, to set one's countenance. His eyes were set by reason of his age. 1 Kings xiv. 4. On these three objects his heart was set. Macaulay. Make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint. Tennyson.

Any slender, more or less rigid, bristlelike organ or part; as the hairs of a caterpillar, the slender spines of a crustacean, the hairlike processes of a protozoan, the bristles or stiff hairs on the leaves of some plants, or the pedicel of the capsule of a moss.

Rigidly methodical, or adherent to rule or principle; exactly conformed to a standard; not allowing or employing unneccessary ornament, amplification, etc.; strict; -- said of style, argument, etc. "Restrained by reason and severe principles." Jer. Taylor. The Latin, a most severe and compendious language. Dryden.…

ith cold; to quake. "With shuddering horror pale." Milton. The shuddering tennant of the frigid zone. Goldsmith.

Having the skin adhering closely and rigidly to the flesh; hidebound. Skinbound disease. (Med.) See Sclerema neonatorum, under Sclerema.

To become slack; to be made less tense, firm, or rigid; to decrease in tension; as, a wet cord slackens in dry weather.