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ain is reduced to flour by a succession of crackings, or of slight and partial crushings, alternately with sifting and sorting the product. -- Low milling, milling in which the reduction is effected in a single crushing or grinding. -- Milling cutter, a fluted, sharp-edged rotary cutter for dressing surfaces, as of m…

A wind blowing part of the year from one direction, alternating with a wind from the opposite direction; -- a term applied particularly to periodical winds of the Indian Ocean, which blow from the southwest from the latter part of May to the middle of September, and from the northeast from about the middle of October t…

Having nodes or prominences; having the alternate joints enlarged, as the antennæ of certain insects.

this finger, and before the turning down of this." J. Webster (1607). -- Now . . . now, alternately; at one time . . . at another time. "Now high, now low, now master up, now miss." Pope.

Any tree or shrub of the genus Quercus. The oaks have alternate leaves, often variously lobed, and staminate flowers in catkins. The fruit is a smooth nut, called an acorn, which is more or less inclosed in a scaly involucre called the cup or cupule. There are now recognized about three hundred species, of which nearly…

fact that it [a belief] invariably exists being the obverse of the fact that there is no alternative belief. H. Spencer.

nt for autographically recording the wave forms of varying currents, esp. rapidly varying alternating currents.

An alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which bears antheridia and archegonia, and so has sexual fructification, as contrasted with the sporophore, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless number. In ferns the oöphore is a minute prothallus; in mosses it…

The power of choosing; the right of choice or election; an alternative. There is an option left to the United States of America, whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptible and miserable, as a nation. Washington.

A particle that marks an alternative; as, you may read or may write, -- that is, you may do one of the things at your pleasure, but not both. It corresponds to either. You may ride either to London or to Windsor. It often connects a series of words or propositions, presenting a choice of either; as, he may study law, o…

A current alternating in direction.

An apparatus for recording or indicating alternating-current wave forms or other electrical oscillations, usually consisting of a galvanometer with strong field, in which the mass of the moving part is very small and frequency of vibration very high. -- Os`cil*lo*graph"ic (#), a.

Alternate; second; -- used esp. in connection with every; as, every other day, that is, each alternate day, every second day.

A stanza of eight lines of heroic verse, with three rhymes, the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet. It was used by Byron in "Don Juan," by Keats in "Isabella," by Shelley in "The Witch of Atlas," etc.

four or more equal parts by perpendicular lines, and of two different tinctures disposed alternately.

on, without fertilization, of cells capable of germination. It is one of the phenomena of alternate generation. Cf. Heterogamy, and Metagenesis.

A body so suspended from a fixed point as to swing freely to and fro by the alternate action of gravity and momentum. It is used to regulate the movements of clockwork and other machinery.

stationary commutator and rotating brushes, in which the exciting field is induced by the alternating current in a short-circuited magnetic core instead of being produced by an external magnet.

nits, objects, letters, etc., in all possible orders, one after the other; -- called also alternation. Cf. Combination, n., 4.

A machine for converting an alternating current into an alternating current of a different number of phases and the same frequency.