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The quality of being expedite; efficient promptness; haste; dispatch; speed; quickness; as to carry the mail with expedition. With winged expedition Swift as the lightning glance.

Intended for a particular purpose; relating to an express; sent on a particular errand; dispatched with special speed; as, an express messenger or train. Also used adverbially. A messenger sent express from the other world. Atterbury. Express color. (Law) See the Note under Color, n., 8.

A band of minute tubercles, bearing modified spines, on the shells of spatangoid sea urchins. See Spatangoidea.

a chute where rapidly moving water strikes the tips of the floats; -- so called from the spattering, and the fluttering noise it makes.

ot.), the monkshood. -- Friar's cowl (Bot.), an arumlike plant (Arisarum vulgare) with a spathe or involucral leaf resembling a cowl. -- Friar's lantern, the ignis fatuus or Will-o'-the-wisp. Milton. -- Friar skate (Zoöl.), the European white or sharpnosed skate (Raia alba); -- called also Burton skate, border ray,…

High boots or buskins; in Scotland, short spatterdashes or riding trousers, worn over the other clothing.

state or condition; -- with a following participle. Those things I bid you do; get them dispatched. Shak.

Rate; price. [Obs.] "Business is bought at a dear hand, where there is small dispatch." Bacon.

Celerity of motion; speed; swiftness; dispatch; expedition; -- applied only to voluntary beings, as men and other animals. The king's business required haste. 1 Sam. xxi. 8.

A great Brazilian palm (Maximiliana regia), having immense spathes which are used for baskets and tubs.

Lyre-shaped, or spatulate and oblong, with small lobes toward the base; as, a lyrate leaf.

, quantities sought are deducible from other quantities known or supposed; the science of spatial and quantitative relations.

A genus of sea urchins, similar to Spatangus, abounding in the chalk formation; -- from the starlike disposal of the ambulacral furrows.

The ripe, undischarged spat of an oyster. Condensed milk. See under Condense, v. t. -- Milk crust (Med.), vesicular eczema occurring on the face and scalp of nursing infants. See Eczema. -- Milk fever. (a) (Med.) A fever which accompanies or precedes the first lactation. It is usually transitory. (b) (Vet. Surg.) A f…

ntain colley. See Ousel. -- Mountain pride, or Mountain green (Bot.), a tree of Jamaica (Spathelia simplex), which has an unbranched palmlike stem, and a terminal cluster of large, pinnate leaves. -- Mountain quail (Zoöl.), the plumed partridge (Oreortyx pictus) of California. It has two long, slender, plumelike feat…

Originally, a vessel employed by government to convey dispatches or mails; hence, a vessel employed in conveying dispatches, mails, passengers, and goods, and having fixed days of sailing; a mail boat. Packet boat, ship, or vessel. See Packet, n., 2. -- Packet day, the day for mailing letters to go by packet; or the s…

A large ganoid fish (Polyodon spathula) found in the rivers of the Mississippi Valley. It has a long spatula-shaped snout. Called also duck-billed cat, and spoonbill sturgeon.

rt of a larger body of company; a detachment; especially (Mil.), a small body of troops dispatched on special service.

To spatter; to sprinkle. [R.] "And patter the water about the boat." J. R. Drake.

An order of Echini, including the irregular sea urchins, as the spatangoids. See Spatangoid.