Search the Dictionary

A pioneer. [Obs.] Shak.

half pitch; whole pitch; or by the height in parts of the half span, especially among engineers; or by degrees, as a pitch of 30°, of 45°, etc.; or by the rise and run, that is, the ratio of the height to the half span; as, a pitch of six rise to ten run. Equilateral pitch is where the two sloping sides with the span f…

asmids often carry the genes for antibiotic resistance; they are exploited in genetic engineering as the vehicles for introduction of extraneous DNA into cells, to alter the genetic makeup of the cell. The cells thus altered may produce desirable proteins which are extracted and used; in the case of genetically altered…

professional conduct. "Pride, not personal, but professional." Macaulay. "A professional sneerer." De Quincey.

y and naval stores, equipments, etc. -- Public works, all fixed works built by civil engineers for public use, as railways, docks, canals, etc.; but strictly, military and civil engineering works constructed at the public cost.

of the genus Copaifera (C. pubiflora, bracteata, and officinalis). Used for decorative veneering. See Copaiba.

The name for numerous simple, but very irregular, melodies of the Swiss mountaineers, blown on a long tube called the Alpine horn, and sometimes sung.

o arms that are pivoted together at one end, and a graduated arc, -- used by military engineers for measuring and laying off angles of fortifications.

ke a preliminary examination or survey of; esp., to survey with a view to military or engineering operations.

A king. To play rex, to play the king; to domineer. [Obs.]

To manage insolently at will; to domineer over. The nobility could no longer endure to be ridden by bakers, cobblers, and brewers. Swift.

body of men engaged in the violation of law or in an illegal enterprise, as rioters, mutineers, or the like. The ringleaders were apprehended, tried, fined, and imprisoned. Macaulay.

The act or practice of rioting; riot. "Electioneering riotry." Walpole.

A thin veneer of leaf of wood used for covering the surface of articles of firniture, and the like. Scaleboard plane, a plane for cutting from a board a wide shaving forming a scaleboard.

be bent like a siphon, but having the branches turned upward; specifically (Hydraulic Engineering), a pipe for conducting water beneath a depressed place, as from one hill to another across an intervening valley, following the depression of the ground. -- Siphon barometer. See under Barometer. -- Siphon bottle, a bot…

A slab of stone used as a veneer for coarse masonry. Knight.

To express slight contempt by a look implying sarcasm or pity; to sneer. 'T was what I said to Craggs and Child, Who praised my modesty, and smiled. Pope.

To go on the stump, or To take the stump, to engage in making public addresses for electioneering purposes; -- a phrase derived from the practice of using a stump for a speaker's platform in newly- settled districts. Hence also the phrases stump orator, stump speaker, stump speech, stump oratory, etc. [Colloq. U.S.]…

A delicate person; one not inured to the hardship and rudeness of pioneer life. [Slang, Western U.S.]

a number of deer and game within a narrow compass. [Scot.] We'll quell the savage mountaineer, As their tinchel cows the game! Sir W. Scott.