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An instrument for measuring the diameters of minute particles or fibers, from the size of the colored rings produced by the diffraction of the light in which the objects are viewed.

por, as a fluid; to escape and be dissipated, either in visible vapor, or in practice too minute to be visible.

To give forth insensibly or gently, as a fluid or vapor; to emit in minute particles; to exhale; as, the earth expires a damp vapor; plants expire odors. The expiring of cold out of the inward parts of the earth in winter. Bacon.

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

A minute thread of fiber, as one of the fibrous elements of a muscular fiber; a fibril.

Not coarse; comminuted; in small particles; as, fine sand or flour.

The labor required to give final completion to any work; hence, minute detail, careful elaboration, or the like.

White, flecked with minute dots of bay or sorrel; -- said of the color of a horse.

), the structure characteristic of certain volcanic rocks in which the arrangement of the minute crystals shows the lines of flow of thew molten material before solidification; -- also called fluxion structure.

hat she please for all me. Spectator. God's desertion shall, for aught he knows, the next minute supervene. Dr. H. More. For anything that legally appears to the contrary, it may be a contrivance to fright us. Swift.

eshly broken surface; as, a compact fracture; an even, hackly, or conchoidal fracture. Comminuted fracture (Surg.), a fracture in which the bone is broken into several parts. -- Complicated fracture (Surg.), a fracture of the bone combined with the lesion of some artery, nervous trunk, or joint. -- Compound fracture…

Work adorned with frets; ornamental openwork or work in relief, esp. when elaborate and minute in its parts. Heuce, any minute play of light andshade, dark and light, or the like. Banqueting on the turf in the fretwork of shade and sunshine. Macaulay.

To fly off in minute particles.

The jet piece of a gas fixture where the gas is burned as it escapes from one or more minute orifices.

The process of passing cotton goods between two rollers and exposing them to numerous minute jets of gas to burn off the small fibers; any similar process of singeing.

A special organ of plants, usually minute and globular, which often secretes some kind of resinous, gummy, or aromatic product.

To collect with patient and minute labor; to pick out; to obtain. Content to glean what we can from . . . experiments. Locke.

isy (Bot.), a plant or flower of the genus Globularing, common in Europe. The flowers are minute and form globular heads. -- Globe sight, a form of front sight placed on target rifles. -- Globe slater (Zoöl.), an isopod crustacean of the genus Spheroma. -- Globe thistle (Bot.), a thistlelike plant with the flowers i…

; a small particle of matter, of a spherical form. Globules of snow. Sir I. Newton. These minute globules [a mole's eyes] are sunk . . . deeply in the skull. Paley.

Having small clusters of minutely branched coral-like excrescences. M. C. Cooke.