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To flow slowly, as water. Cheyne.

tep by step, as in ascent or descent or from one state to another; regularly progressive; slow; as, a gradual increase of knowledge; a gradual decline. Creatures animate with gradual life Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in man. Milton.

The quality or state of being gradual; regular progression or gradation; slowness. The gradualness of this movement. M. Arnold. The gradualness of growth is a characteristic which strikes the simplest observer. H. Drummond.

Slow and solemn in movement. Grave accent. (Pron.) See the Note under Accent, n., 2.

Slow-paced. -- n.

The swelling of the ovary of plants after fertilization. Henslow.

as, a grower of corn; also, that which grows or increases; as, a vine may be a rank or a slow grower.

to hang down the head, or, elliptically, to hang the head. -- To hang fire (Mil.), to be slow in communicating fire through the vent to the charge; as, the gun hangs fire; hence, to hesitate, to hold back as if in suspense.

Uneasily; vexatiously; slowly. Shak.

Not only within his own camp, but also now at Rome, he heard ill for his temporizing and slow proceedings. Holland. -- To hear well, to be praised. [Obs.]

of fire or friction, etc., or the communication of heat; as, the iron or the water heats slow.

As if burdened with a great weight; slowly and laboriously; with difficulty; hence, in a slow, difficult, or suffering manner; sorrowfully. And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily. Ex. xiv. 25. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day Shak.

Slow; sluggish; inactive; or lifeless, dull, inanimate, stupid; as, a heavy gait, looks, manners, style, and the like; a heavy writer or book. Whilst the heavy plowman snores. Shak. Of a heavy, dull, degenerate mind. Dryden. Neither [is] his ear heavy, that it can not hear. Is. lix. 1.

Habitual; constitutional; pertaining especially to slow waste of animal tissue, as in consumption; as, a hectic type in disease; a hectic flush.

, elephants, deer, or swine; a particular stock or family of cattle. The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea. Gray.

The act of hesitating, or pausing to consider; slowness in deciding; vacillation; also, the manner of one who hesitates.

A peasant; a rustic; a farm servant. [Eng.] The hind, that homeward driving the slow steer Tells how man's daily work goes forward here. Trench.

of fluids in all directions. -- Hydrostatic press, a machine in which great force, with slow motion, is communicated to a large plunger by means of water forced into the cylinder in which it moves, by a forcing pump of small diameter, to which the power is applied, the principle involved being the same as in the hydr…

s; as, hypophosphoric acid. Hypophosphoric acid (Chem.), an acid, P2H4O6, produced by the slow oxidation of moist phosphorus, and isolated only as a solution in water. It is regarded as a condensation product of one molecule of phosphoric acid with one of phosphorous acid, by partial dehydration.

Having the leaves expand after the flowers have opened. Henslow.