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of the soldiers in a train of artillery, who assisted the gunners in loading, firing, and sponging the guns. [Obs.]

Filled with spongy pith; pithy. Medullary groove (Anat.), a groove, in the epiblast of the vertebrate blastoderm, the edges of which unite, making a tube (the medullary canal) from which the brain and spinal cord are developed. -- Medullary rays (Bot.), the rays of cellular tissue seen in a transverse section of exoge…

Deep mud; wet, spongy earth. Chaucer. He his rider from the lofty steed Would have cast down and trod in dirty mire. Spenser. Mire crow (Zoöl.), the pewit, or laughing gull. [Prov. Eng.] -- Mire drum, the European bittern. [Prov. Eng.]

wdery variety of calcite, occurring as an efflorescence. -- Mountain milk (Min.), a soft spongy variety of carbonate of lime. -- Mountain mint. (Bot.) See Mint. -- Mountain ousel (Zoöl.), the ring ousel; -- called also mountain thrush and mountain colley. See Ousel. -- Mountain pride, or Mountain green (Bot.), a tr…

A light, spongy, cylindrical cake, used for breakfast and tea.

lycerin, -- used in blasting. -- Neptune's cup (Zoöl.), a very large, cup-shaped, marine sponge (Thalassema Neptuni).

One of the excurrent apertures of sponges.

A minute soft filamentary process springing from the surface of certain hydroids and sponges.

e (Carica Papaya) of tropical America, belonging to the order Passifloreæ. It has a soft, spongy stem, eighteen or twenty feet high, crowned with a tuft of large, long-stalked, palmately lobed leaves. The milky juice of the plant is said to have the property of making meat tender. Also, its dull orange-colored, melon-…

el. True corms, composed of united personæ . . . usually arise by gemmation, . . . yet in sponges and corals occasionally by fusion of several originally distinct persons. Encyc. Brit. Artificial, or Fictitious, person (Law), a corporation or body politic. blackstone. -- Natural person (Law), a man, woman, or child, i…

n invented by the Phrygian Marsyas. Moore (Encyc. of Music). -- Phrygian stone, a light, spongy stone, resembling a pumice, -- used by the ancients in dyeing, and said to be drying and astringent.

A group of simple marine organisms, usually classed as the lowest of the sponges. They have inflated hollow bodies.

The soft spongy substance in the center of the stems of many plants and trees, especially those of the dicotyledonous or exogenous classes. It consists of cellular tissue.

, viz., osmium, iridium, and platinum, whose specific gravities are over 21. -- Platinum sponge (Chem.), metallic platinum in a gray, porous, spongy form, obtained by reducing the double chloride of platinum and ammonium. It absorbs oxygen, hydrogen, and certain other gases, to a high degree, and is employed as an age…

on of several structural forms without a corresponding difference in function; -- said of sponges, etc.

A grand division of the Invertebrata, including the sponges; -- called also Spongiæ, Spongida, and Spongiozoa. The principal divisions are Calcispongiæ, Keratosa or Fibrospongiæ, and Silicea.

A slender elastic rod, as of whalebone, with a sponge on the end, for removing obstructions from the esophagus, etc.

Affected with a kind of chronic laminitis in which there is a growth of soft spongy horn between the coffin bone and the hoof wall. The disease is called pumiced foot, or pumice foot.

Of or pertaining to fireworks, or the art of forming them. Pyrotechnical sponge. See under Sponge.

Of the nature of a quagmire; yielding or trembling under the foot, as soft, wet earth; spongy; boggy. "O'er the watery strath, or quaggy moss." Collins.