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roductory; previous; preceding the main discourse or business; prefatory; as, preliminary observations to a discourse or book; preliminary articles to a treaty; preliminary measures; preliminary examinations.

The notice taken by a grand jury of any offence from their own knowledge or observation, without any bill of indictment laid before them, as, the presentment of a nuisance, a libel, or the like; also, an inquisition of office and indictment by a grand jury; an official accusation presented to a tribunal by the grand ju…

The state of being in retirement from the company or observation of others; seclusion.

Sequestered from company or observation; appropriated to an individual; secret; secluded; lonely; solitary; as, a private room or apartment; private prayer. Reason . . . then retires Into her private cell when nature rests. Milton.

ground of presumption that a charge is, or my be, well founded. -- Probable error (of an observation, or of the mean of a number), that within which, taken positively and negatively, there is an even chance that the real error shall lie. Thus, if 3" is the probable error in a given case, the chances that the real erro…

Preface; introduction; preliminary observations; prelude. Thus much may serve by way of proem. Swift.

A preliminary remark or observation; an introductory discourse prefixed to a book or treatise. D. Stokes (1659). Sir W. Scott.

hich briefly and forcibly expresses some practical truth, or the result of experience and observation; a maxim; a saw; an adage. Chaucer. Bacon.

lessly; silently; without remark or violent movement; in a manner to attract little or no observation; as, he quietly left the room.

Direct observation of objects opaque to light by means of some other form of radiant energy, as the Röntgen rays. -- Ra`di*o*scop"ic (#), *scop"ic*al (#), a.

To discover or understand by characters, marks, features, etc.; to learn by observation. An armed corse did lie, In whose dead face he read great magnanimity. Spenser. Those about her From her shall read the perfect ways of honor. Shak.

An observation read from the scale of a graduated instrument; as, the reading of a barometer. Reading of a bill (Legislation), its normal recital, by the proper officer, before the House which is to consider it.

The calculation of a ship's position, either from astronomical observations, or from the record of the courses steered and distances sailed as shown by compass and log, -- in the latter case called dead reckoning (see under Dead); -- also used fro dead reckoning in contradistinction to observation.

put together again or repeatedly. The far greater number of the objects presented to our observation can only be decomposed, but not actually recomposed. Sir W. Hamilton.

utation; as, to reduce animals or vegetables to a class or classes; to reduce a series of observations in astronomy; to reduce language to rules.

The correction of observations for known errors of instruments, etc.

Attention of the mind with a feeling of interest; observation; heed; notice. Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard. Shak.

Reference; respect; regard. I have been importuned to make some observations on this art in relation to its agreement with poetry. Dryden.

Act of remarking or attentively noticing; notice or observation. The cause, though worth the search, may yet elude Conjecture and remark, however shrewd. Cowper.

The measurement of an angle by successive observations with a repeating instrument.