HERIOT n.
ccouterments, or the best beast, or chattel, due to the lord on the death of a tenant; in modern use, a customary tribute of goods or chattels to the lord of the fee, paid on the decease of a tenant. Blackstone. Bouvier. Heriot custom, a heriot depending on usage. -- Heriot service (Law), a heriot due by reservation i…
HOTCHPOT; HOTCHPOTCH n.
rs from the same ancestor, and then divided in equal portions among all the daughters. In modern usage, a mixing together, or throwing into a common mass or stock, of the estate left by a person deceased and the amounts advanced to any particular child or children, for the purpose of a more equal division, or of equali…
ILLUMINATI n.
Members of certain associations in Modern Europe, who combined to promote social reforms, by which they expected to raise men and society to perfection, esp. of one originated in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, professor of canon law at Ingolstadt, which spread rapidly for a time, but ceased after a few years.…
INFINITY n.
That part of a line, or of a plane, or of space, which is infinitely distant. In modern geometry, parallel lines or planes are sometimes treated as lines or planes meeting at infinity. Circle at infinity, an imaginary circle at infinity, through which, in geometry of three dimensions, every sphere is imagined to pass.…
IONIC a.
., 1. -- Ionic, or Ionian, mode (Mus.), an ancient mode, supposed to correspond with the modern major scale of C. -- Ionic sect, a sect of philosophers founded by Thales of Miletus, in Ionia. Their distinguishing tenet was, that water is the original principle of all things. -- Ionic type, a kind of heavy-faced type…
LAURUS n.
A genus of trees including, according to modern authors, only the true laurel (Laurus nobilis), and the larger L. Canariensis of Madeira and the Canary Islands. Formerly the sassafras, the camphor tree, the cinnamon tree, and several other aromatic trees and shrubs, were also referred to the genus Laurus.…