Search the Dictionary

A dry, brown, astringent extract, obtained by decoction and evaporation from the Acacia catechu, and several other plants growing in India. It contains a large portion of tannin or tannic acid, and is used in medicine and in the arts. It is also known by the names terra japonica, cutch, gambier, etc. Ure. Dunglison.…

Of or pertaining to catechu or its derivatives. See catechin.

One who is receiving rudimentary instruction in the doctrines of Christianity; a neophyte; in the primitive church, one officially recognized as a Christian, and admitted to instruction preliminary to admission to full membership in the church.

The state or condition of a catechumen or the time during which one is a catechumen.

Of or pertaining to catechumens; as, catechumenical instructions.

A catechumen. Bp. Morton.

Capable of being employed by itself as a term; -- said of a word.

Of or pertaining to a category.

Absolutely; directly; expressly; positively; as, to affirm categorically.

The quality of being categorical, positive, or absolute. A. Marvell.

One who inserts in a category or list; one who classifies. Emerson.

To insert in a category or list; to class; to catalogue.

can be arranged in a system; an ultimate or undecomposable conception; a predicament. The categories or predicaments -- the former a Greek word, the latter its literal translation in the Latin language -- were intended by Aristotle and his followers as an enumeration of all things capable of being named; an enumeration…

Property; -- often used by Chaucer in contrast with rent, or income. "For loss of catel may recovered be, But loss of tyme shendeth us," quod he. Chaucer.

The negative electrode or pole of a voltaic battery. Faraday.

Relating to, or characterized by, catelectrotonus.

The condition of increased irritability of a nerve in the region of the cathode or negative electrode, on the passage of a current of electricity through it.

es of things connected with each other. I have . . . in no case sought to construct those catenæ of games, which it seems now the fashion of commentators to link together. C. J. Ellicott.

The curve formed by a rope or chain of uniform density and perfect flexibility, hanging freely between two points of suspension, not in the same vertical line.

Relating to a chain; like a chain; as, a catenary curve.