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-- Leading motive Etym: [a translation of G. leitmotif] (Mus.), a guiding theme; in the modern music drama of Wagner, a marked melodic phrase or short passage which always accompanies the reappearance of a certain person, situation, abstract idea, or allusion in the course of the play; a sort of musical label. -- Le…

One of an extinct family of trees allied to the modern club mosses, and including Lepidodendron and its allies.

Nymphæa Lotus and N. cærulea, the respectively white-flowered and blue-flowered lotus of modern Egypt, which, with Nelumbium speciosum, are figured on its ancient monuments.

A kind of burlesque composition, in which the vernacular words of one or more modern languages are intermixed with genuine Latin words, and with hybrid formed by adding Latin terminations to other roots.

, and of variously estimated values. The silver mancus was equal to about one shilling of modern English money.

n a society similarly organized. -- The old masters, distinguished painters who preceded modern painters; especially, the celebrated painters of the 16th and 17th centuries. -- To be master of one's self, to have entire self-control; not to be governed by passion. -- To be one's own master, to be at liberty to act a…

To beat and bruise with a heavy stick or cudgel; to wound in a coarse manner. Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and maul. Pope.

culiar rules; especially, such an association of knights in the Middle Ages, or a body in modern times taking a similar form, membership of which confers some distinction. -- Military tenure, tenure of land, on condition of performing military service.

Originally, a painting in colors such as those in mediæval manuscripts; in modern times, any very small painting, especially a portrait.

poetry and music, and sang verses to the accompaniment of a harp or other instrument; in modern times, a poet; a bard; a singer and harper; a musician. Chaucer.

lectric motor. An electric motor forms an integral part of many machine tools in numerous modern machine shops.

of Egypt. No botanist now believes that genuine mummy wheat has been made to germinate in modern times. -- To beat to a mummy, to beat to a senseless mass; to beat soundly.

An extemporaneous funeral song, composed and sung by a woman on the death of a friend. [Modern Greece]

A term used by modern archæologists instead of cella. See Cella.

e under person, n. -- Natural philosophy, originally, the study of nature in general; in modern usage, that branch of physical science, commonly called physics, which treats of the phenomena and laws of matter and considers those effects only which are unaccompanied by any change of a chemical nature; -- contrasted wi…

about 1,220 cubic centimeters, being about midway between that of the Pithecanthropus and modern man. Hence, designating the Neanderthal race, or man, a species supposed to have been widespread in paleolithic Europe.

y of the dead; a name given by the ancients to their cemeteries, and sometimes applied to modern burial places; a graveyard.

The modern Hebrew language.

Hellenism as surviving or revival in modern times; the practice or pursuit of ancient Greek ideals in modern life, art, or literature, as in the Renaissance.

The philosophy of modern thinkers who follow Kant in his general theory of knowledge, esp. of a group of German philosophers including F. A. Lange, H. Cohen, Paul Natorp, and others.