ARTICLE n.
an indictment does in a common criminal case. -- Articles of war, rules and regulations, fixed by law, for the better government of the army. -- In the article of death Etym: [L. in articulo mortis], at the moment of death; in the dying struggle. -- Lords of the articles (Scot. Hist.), a standing committee of the Sc…
ASTATIC a.
Having little or no tendency to take a fixed or definite position or direction: thus, a suspended magnetic needle, when rendered astatic, loses its polarity, or tendency to point in a given direction. Astatic pair (Magnetism), a pair of magnetic needles so mounted as to be nearly or quite astatic, as in some galvanomet…
ATIMY n.
A suffix forming nouns of action, and often equivalent to the verbal substantive in -ing. It sometimes has the further meanings of state, and that which results from the action. Many of these nouns have verbs in -ate; as, alliterate -ation, narrate -ation; many are derived through the French; as, alteration, visitation…
AX; AXE n.
ing and splitting wood, hewing timber, etc. It is wielded by a wooden helve or handle, so fixed in a socket or eye as to be in the same plane with the blade. The broadax, or carpenter's ax, is an ax for hewing timber, made heavier than the chopping ax, and with a broader and thinner blade and a shorter handle.…