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bbr. B. L.), applied to all guns loading with the charge in bags, and formerly from quick-fire. Rapid-fire guns in the navy also sometimes include automatic or semiautomatic rapid-fire guns; the former being automatic guns of not less than one inch caliber, firing a shell of not less than one pound weight, the explosio…

To affirm again.

A second affirmation.

To confirm anew. Clarendon.

A species of pine (Pinus sylvestris), and its wood, which affords a valuable timber; -- called also Scotch pine, and red or yellow deal. It grows in all parts of Europe, in the Caucasus, and in Siberia.

Having the percussion fulminate in a rim surrounding the base, distinguished from center-fire; -- said of cartridges; also, using rim-fire cartridges; as, a rim-fire gun. Such cartridges are now little used.

An alarm of fire. [Obs.]

A sertularian hydroid, especially Sertularia abietina, which branches like a miniature fir tree.

A Californian fir (Abies shastensis).

A violent, irascible, or passionate person. [Colloq.] Grose.

Infirm. [R.] Dryden.

Infirmness. [R.]

A composition of inflammable materials, which, kindled, is very hard to quench; Greek fire. Brimstone, pitch, wildfire . . . burn cruelly, and hard to quench. Bacon.

A member of the Bantu race comprising the Zulus and the Kaffirs.

The first letter of the English and of many other alphabets. The capital A of the alphabets of Middle and Western Europe, as also the small letter (a), besides the forms in Italic, black letter, etc., are all descended from the old Latin A, which was borrowed from the Greek Alpha, of the same form; and this was made fr…

The first three letters of the alphabet, used for the whole alphabet.

A priori, that is, form these necessities of the mind or forms of thinking, which, though first revealed to us by experience, must yet have preëxisted in order to make experience possible. Coleridge.

Pertaining to Aaron, the first high priest of the Jews.

A primer; the first principle or rudiment of anything. [R.] Fuller.

ial alienation of reason. "Occasional aberrations of intellect." Lingard. Whims, which at first are the aberrations of a single brain, pass with heat into epidemic form. I. Taylor.