Search the Dictionary

embling a needle. In old MSS. or editions of the classics, it marks suspected passages or readings.

To abuse or oppress, as if by treading upon. None of them the feeble overran. Spenser.

Spreading from the apex of a petiole, as the divisions of a leaf, or leaflets, so as to resemble the hand with outspread fingers. Gray.

Old World amaryllideous bulbous plants, having a funnel-shaped perianth with six narrow spreading lobes. The American species are now placed in the related genus Hymenocallis.

lel to each other. -- Parallel columns, or Parallels (Printing), two or more passages of reading matter printed side by side, for the purpose of emphasizing the similarity or discrepancy between them. -- Parallel forces (Mech.), forces which act in directions parallel to each other. -- Parallel motion. (a) (Mach.) A…

upon a proposition; hence, adoption; enactment; as, the passage of the bill to its third reading was delayed. "The passage of the Stamp Act." D. Hosack. The final question was then put upon its passage. Cushing. In passage, in passing; cursorily. "These . . . have been studied but in passage." Bacon. -- Middle passag…

Spreading; forming a nearly right angle with the steam or branch; as, a patent leaf. Patent leather, a varnished or lacquered leather, used for boots and shoes, and in carriage and harness work. -- Patent office, a government bureau for the examination of inventions and the granting of patents. -- Patent right. (a) T…

Open; expanded; slightly spreading; having the parts loose or dispersed; as, a patulous calyx; a patulous cluster of flowers. The eyes are large and patulous. Sir J. Hill.

In speaking or reading aloud, a brief arrest or suspension of voice, to indicate the limits and relations of sentences and their parts.

The act of permeating, passing through, or spreading throughout, the pores or interstices of any substance. Here is not a mere involution only, but a spiritual permeation and inexistence. Bp. Hall.

The act of reading, especially of reading through or with care. Woodward.

The act of pervading, passing, or spreading through the whole extent of a thing. Boyle.

Spreading, obstinate ulceration.

A genus of evergreen plants growing along the shores of the Mediterranean, and breading a fruit resembling that of the olive.

Any plant of the genus Plantago, but especially the P. major, a low herb with broad spreading radical leaves, and slender spikes of minute flowers. It is a native of Europe, but now found near the abode of civilized man in nearly all parts of the world. Indian plantain. (Bot.) See under Indian. -- Mud plantain, a home…

An external application of a consistency harder than ointment, prepared for use by spreading it on linen, leather, silk, or other material. It is adhesive at the ordinary temperature of the body, and is used, according to its composition, to produce a medicinal effect, to bind parts together, etc.; as, a porous plaster…

a character used to mark the divisions of a composition, or the pauses to be observed in reading, or to point off groups of figures, etc.; a stop, as a comma, a semicolon, and esp. a period; hence, figuratively, an end, or conclusion. And there a point, for ended is my tale. Chaucer. Commas and points they set exactly…

To look or gaze steadily in reading or studying; to fix the attention; to be absorbed; -- often with on or upon, and now usually with over."Painfully to pore upon a book." Shak. The eye grows weary with poring perpetually on the same thing. Dryden.

A fine powder, as of sandarac, or cuttlefish bone, -- formerly used to prevent ink from spreading on manuscript.

, having a large inclosure with a narrow entrance into which fish are directed by wings spreading outward. Pound covert, a pound that is close or covered over, as a shed. -- Pound overt, a pound that is open overhead.