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or wild and unrestrained sallies, of imagination, humor, caprice, etc.; given to disorder Proofs of my flighty and paradoxical turn of mind. Coleridge. A harsh disciplinarian and a flighty enthusiast. J. S. Har

e body. Raymond. Floor cloth, a heavy fabric, painted, varnished, or saturated, with waterproof material, for covering floors; oilcloth. -- Floor cramp, an implement for tightening the seams of floor boards before nailing them in position. -- Floor light, a frame with glass panes in a floor. -- Floor plan. (a) (Ship…

To judge beforehand, or before hearing the facts and proof; to prejudge.

ing and hammering; to beat into any particular shape, as a metal. Mars's armor forged for proof eterne. Shak.

le of voluntary activity; endowed with moral liberty; -- said of the will. Not free, what proof could they have given sincere Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love. Milton.

drink offering unto that number. Is. lxv. 11. His writings and his life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong sense. Macaulay.

A proof sheet taken from type while on a galley; a galley proof. Galley slave, a person condemned, often as a punishment for crime, to work at the oar on board a galley. "To toil like a galley slave." Macaulay.-- Galley slice (Print.), a sliding false bottom to a large galley. Knight.

Any very thin gauzelike fabric; also, a thin waterproof stuff.

Not called for by the circumstances; without reason, cause, or proof; adopted or asserted without any good ground; as, a gratuitous assumption. Acts of gratuitous self-humiliation. De Quincye. -- Gra*tu"i*tous*ly, adv. -- Gra*tu"i*tous*ness, n.

to facts and evidence, for the sake of adjudication; a session of a court for considering proofs and determining issues. His last offenses to us Shall have judicious hearing. Shak. Another hearing before some other court. Dryden.

le which is supposed or taken for granted, in order to draw a conclusion or inference for proof of the point in question; something not proved, but assumed for the purpose of argument, or to account for a fact or an occurrence; as, the hypothesis that head winds detain an overdue steamer. An hypothesis being a mere sup…

Characterized by, or of the nature of, an hypothesis; conditional; assumed without proof, for the purpose of reasoning and deducing proof, or of accounting for some fact or phenomenon. Causes hypothetical at least, if not real, for the various phenomena of the existence of which our experience informs us. Sir W. Hamilt…

ense and intelligence. I will undertake to convict a man of idiocy, if he can not see the proof that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. F. W. Robertson.

in 1276 this time was fixed by statute as the begining of the reign of Richard I. (1189). Proof of unbroken possession or use of any right since that date made it unnecessary to establish the original grant. In 1832 the plan of dating legal memory from a fixed time was abandoned and the principle substituted that right…

A print on paper from a wood block, metal plate, or the like. Proof impression, one of the early impressions taken from an engraving, before the plate or block is worn.

he incoherence of arguments, facts, etc. Incoherences in matter, and suppositions without proofs, put handsomely together, are apt to pass for strong reason. Locke.

A chiding; rebuke; reproof. [Obs.] Hammond.

mooth but not glossy surface, used for printing from engravings, woodcuts, etc. -- India proof (Engraving), a proof impression from an engraved plate, taken on India paper. -- India rubber. See Caoutchouc. -- India-rubber tree (Bot.), any tree yielding caoutchouc, but especially the East Indian Ficus elastica, often…

Not reaching the end aimed at by the most plain and direct method; as, an indirect proof, demonstration, etc. Indirect claims, claims for remote or consequential damage. Such claims were presented to and thrown out by the commissioners who arbitrated the damage inflicted on the United States by the Confederate States c…

lible remedy. To whom also he showed himself alive, after his passion, by many infallible proofs. Acts i. 3.