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A position or condition which affords entrance, control, pr possession, etc.; as, the key of a line of defense; the key of a country; the key of a political situation. Hence, that which serves to unlock, open, discover, or solve something unknown or difficult; as, the key to a riddle; the key to a problem. Those who ar…

ntricate passageways which render it difficult to find the way from the interior to the entrance; as, the Egyptian and Cretan labyrinths.

The entrance or escape of a fluid through a crack, fissure, or other aperture; as, the leak gained on the ship's pumps. To spring a leak, to open or crack so as to let in water; to begin to let in water; as, the ship sprung a leak.

A tower or other building with a powerful light at top, erected at the entrance of a port, or at some important point on a coast, to serve as a guide to mariners at night; a pharos.

o hundred lodges, that is, of about a thousand individuals. Lodge gate, a park gate, or entrance gate, near the lodge. See Lodge, n., 1 (b).

rt of the main edifice to which it is attached; from a porch, in being intended not for entrance but for an out-of-door sitting-room.

n opening in the membranes surrounding the ovum, by which nutrition is assisted and the entrance of the spermatozoa permitted.

The middle part of the alimentary canal from the stomach, or entrance of the bile duct, to, or including, the large intestine.

An opening affording entrance or exit; orifice; aperture; as:

e of his party. Egmont was imprudent enough to make himself the mouthpiece of their remonstrance. Motley.

The mouth of a thing; the end for entrance or discharge; as, the muzzle of a gun.

The middle or body of a church, extending from the transepts to the principal entrances, or, if there are no transepts, from the choir to the principal entrance, but not including the aisles.

A back chamber; especially, that part of the naos, or cella, farthest from the main entrance, sometimes having an entrance of its own, and often used as a treasury.

, son of the Muse Calliope, and husband of Eurydice. He is reputed to have had power to entrance beasts and inanimate objects by the music of his lyre.

A mouth; an opening; an entrance.

Same as Monstrance.

A sentry who guards the entrance or approach to a place; an outguard.

a panel house. -- Panel house, a house of prostitution in which the rooms have secret entrances to facilitate theft by accomplices of the inmates. -- Panel saw, handsaw with fine teeth, -- used for cutting out panels, etc. -- Panel thief, one who robs in a panel house.

To affect or exalt with visions of felicity; to entrance; to bewitch. [R.] Marston.

a court of entrance to, or an inclosed space before, a church; hence, a church porch; -- sometimes formerly used as place of meeting, as for lawyers. Chaucer.