Search the Dictionary

To follow in the next place; to succeed; to alternate. [R.] In the method of nature, a low valley is immediately seconded with an ambitious hill. Fuller. Sin is seconded with sin. South.

are seated upon the opposite ends of a plank which is balanced in the middle, and move alternately up and down.

ake sudden hold of; to come upon suddenly; as, a fever seizes a patient. Hope and deubt alternate seize her seul. Pope.

eparate from the rest; to reserve. -- To set a saw, to bend each tooth a little, every alternate one being bent to one side, and the intermediate ones to the other side, so that the opening made by the saw may be a little wider than the thickness of the back, to prevent the saw from sticking. -- To set aside. (a) To…

the shuttle is thrown, having a sloping top and bottom made by raising and lowering the alternate threads.

To climb a mast, tree, rope, or the like, by embracing it alternately with the arms and legs, without help of steps, spurs, or the like; -- used with up; as, to shin up a mast. [Slang]

g by sutures at either margin. The seeds are attached to both edges of the dissepiment, alternately upon each side of it.

es. Dividing sinker, in knitting machines, a sinker between two jack sinkers and acting alternately with them. -- Jack sinker. See under Jack, n. -- Sinker bar. (a) In knitting machines, a bar to which one set of the sinkers is attached. (b) In deep well boring, a heavy bar forming a connection between the lifting ro…

Having the margin alternately curved inward and outward; having rounded lobes separated by rounded sinuses; sinuous; wavy.

valve, often used in steam engines for admitting steam to the piston and releasing it, alternately, having a cuplike cavity in its face, through which the exhaust steam passes. It is situated in the steam chest, and moved by the valve gear. It is sometimes called a D valve, -- a name which is also applied to a semicyl…

A contrivance in some of the ealier steam engines for moving the valves for the alternate admission and shutting off of the steam.

That alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless numbers. In ferns it is the leafy plant, in mosses the capsule. Cf. Oöphore.

To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam.

Applied to spokes when they are arranged alternately in two circles in the hub. See Straddle, v. i., and Straddle, v. t., 3. Knight.

Subalternate; successive.

The state of being subalternate; succession of turns; subordination.

To climb a tree, pole, or the like, by embracing it with the arms and legs alternately. See Shin. [Colloq.] At the top was placed a piece of money, as a prize for those who could swarm up and seize it. W. Coxe.

insurmountable are passed. The track ascends by a series of zigzags, the engine running alternately forward and back, until the summit is reached. -- Switch board (Elec.), a collection of switches in one piece of apparatus, so arranged that a number of circuits may be connected or combined in any desired manner. -- S…

Capable of, or taking place by, alternate contraction and dilatation; as, the systaltic action of the heart.

To insert, as one piece of timber into another, by alternate scores or projections from the middle, to prevent slipping; to scarf.