Search the Dictionary

Any scheme, stratagem, secret design, or plan, of a complicated nature, adapted to the accomplishment of some purpose, usually a treacherous and mischievous one; a conspiracy; an intrigue; as, the Rye-house Plot. I have overheard a plot of death. Shak. O, think what anxious moments pass between The birth of plots and t…

n principles of equity or honor; hence, worldly wisdom; dexterity of management; cunning; stratagem.

Skillful or artful management; dexterity in contrivance or the use of means; art; stratagem; artifice; plot; -- usually in a bad sense. [Obs.] Bacon. He sought to have that by practice which he could not by prayer. Sir P. Sidney.

One who uses art or stratagem. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

That which is taken from another; something captured; a thing seized by force, stratagem, or superior power. I will depart my pris, or may prey, by deliberation. Chaucer. His own prize, Whom formerly he had in battle won. Spenser.

A hog. Puerco beds (Geol.), a name given to certain strata belonging to the earliest Eocene. They are developed in Northwestern New Mexico, along the Rio Puerco, and are characterized by their mammalian remains.

The strata of the Purbeck stone, or Purbeck limestone, belonging to the Oölitic group. See the Chart of Geology.

A fissure or mineral vein traversing the strata vertically, or nearly so; -- called also rake-vein. Gill rakes. (Anat.) See under 1st Gill.

ic]. "To reave his life." Spenser. He golden apples raft of the dragon. Chaucer. By privy stratagem my life at home. Chapman. To reave the orphan of his patrimony. Shak. The heaven caught and reft him of his tongue. Tennyson.

p of a mountain, arising from the passage of light from it to the eye through atmospheric strata of varying density.

Pertining to, or of the same horizon as, certain Mesozoic strata of the Rhetian Alps. These strata are regarded as closing the Triassic period. See the Chart of Geology.

An artifice; trick; stratagem; wile; fraund; deceit. Ruse de guerre ( Etym: [F.], a stratagem of war.

A thin layer or stratum; a narrow vein between two thicker strata; as, a seam of coal.

th the primaries; -- called also secondaries. See Illust. of Bird. -- Secondary rocks or strata (Geol.), those lying between the Primary, or Paleozoic, and Tertiary (see Primary rocks, under Primary); -- later restricted to strata of the Mesozoic age, and at but little used. -- Secondary syphilis (Med.), the second s…

hrough, or supposed to pass through, an object, as a building, a machine, a succession of strata; profile.

To live by shifts and stratagems. Beau & Fl.

Full of strata of rock. [Obs.] The tillable fields are in some places . . . so shelfy that the corn hath much ado to fasten its root. Carew.

ancient Silures; -- a term applied to the earliest of the Paleozoic eras, and also to the strata of the era, because most plainly developed in that country.

Not given to artifice, stratagem, or duplicity; undesigning; sincere; true. Full many fine men go upon my score, as simple as I stand here, and I trust them. Marston. Must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue Byron. To be simple is to be great. Emerson.

he planes of stratification. It is now believed to be caused by the compression which the strata have undergone. -- Slaty gneiss (Min.), a variety of gneiss in which the scales of mica or crystals of hornblende, which are usually minute, form thin laminæ, rendering the rock easily cleavable.