Search the Dictionary

In sword and saber exercises, a circular swing of the weawon.

The upright post about which the steps of a circular staircase wind; hence, in stairs having straight flights, the principal post at the foot of a staircase, or the secondary ones at the landings. See Hollow newel, under Hollow.

A circular letter, written or printed for the purpose of disseminating news. This was the name given to the earliest English newspapers.

The cutting lip which projects downward at the edge of a boring bit and cuts a circular groove in the wood to limit the size of the hole that is bored.

ry, characterized by great massiveness, simplicity, and strength, with the use of the semicircular arch, heavy round columns, and a great variety of ornaments, among which the zigzag and spiral or cable-formed ornaments were prominent.

A circular or oval window; -- generally used of architecture of the 17th and 18th centuries. A famous room in the palace of Versailles bears this name, from the oval window opening into it.

A small opening or loophole, sometimes circular, used in mediæval fortifications.

espects, differ in this, viz., that they do or do not produce right-handed or left-handed circular polarization of light. -- Optically positive, Optically negative. See under Refraction.

A circle; esp., a circle, or nearly circular orbit, described by the revolution of a heavenly body; an orbit. The schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics, and epicycles, and such engines of orbs. Bacon. You seem to me as Dian in her orb. Shak. In orbs Of circuit inexpressible they stood, Orb within…

Spherical; orbicular; orblike; circular. [R.] Bacon.

Resembling or having the form of an orb; spherical; circular; orbiculate. -- Or*bic"u*lar*ly, adv. -- Or*bic"u*lar*ness, n. Orbicular as the disk of a planet. De Quincey.

te; especially, a solid the vertical section of which is oval, and the horizontal section circular.

Made, or being, in the form of an orb; having a circular, or nearly circular, or a spheroidal, outline. Orbiculate leaf (Bot.), a leaf whose outline is nearly circular.

A genus of living Foraminifera, forming broad, thin, circular disks, containing numerous small chambers.

A semicircular projection made at the shoulder of a bastion for the purpose of covering the retired flank, -- found in old fortresses.

A camera for obtaining a circular panoramic view of the horizon. The photographic plate is placed horizontally with a vertical lens above. A mirror of peculiar shape reflects light from the entire horizon to the lens, by means of which it is focused upon the plate.

g; having a figure such that any section in the direction of the shorter diameter will be circular, and any in the direction of the longer diameter will be oval.

Deviating from circularity; changing the distance from a center. Paracentric curve (Math.), a curve having the property that, when its plane is placed vertically, a body descending along it, by the force of gravity, will approach to, or recede from, a fixed point or center, by equal distances in equal times; -- called…

A circular ornament, resembling a dish, often worked in relief on friezes, and the like.

Shieldlike, with the outline nearly circular; peltate. Henslow.