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A plank or beam used for supporting the earth in mines or fortifications.

y main strength, by sheer strength; as, to lift a heavy weight by main strength. -- Main beam (Steam Engine), working beam. -- Main boom (Naut.), the boom which extends the foot of the mainsail in a fore and aft vessel. -- Main brace. (a) (Mech.) The brace which resists the chief strain. Cf. Counter brace. (b) (Naut…

s of a light-tight box or camera having at one end a small convex mirror which reflects a beam of light on to the ground glass or photographic plate at the other end. The mirror is pivoted so that it can be moved in one direction by a small plunger operated by an elastic metal diaphragm which closes a tube connected wi…

Of or pertaining to, or being in, the middle of a ship. Midship beam (Naut.), the beam or timber upon which the broadest part of a vessel is formed. -- Midship bend, the broadest frame in a vessel. Weale.

us of rupture, the measure of the force necessary to break a given substance across, as a beam, expressed by eighteen times the load which is required to break a bar of one inch square, supported flatwise at two points one foot apart, and loaded in the middle between the points of support. Rankine.

Of or pertaining to the moon. Soft and pale as the moony beam. J. R. Drake.

To join or fasten by a tenon and mortise; as, to mortise a beam into a post, or a joist into a girder.

Filled with motes, or fine floating dust; as, the air. "Moted sunbeams." Tennyson.

with a nail or nails; to close up or secure by means of nails; as, to nail boards to the beams. He is now dead, and nailed in his chest. Chaucer.

ar, the reciprocating bar to which the needle of a sewing machine is attached. -- Needle beam (Arch.), to shoring, the horizontal cross timber which goes through the wall or a pier, and upon which the weight of the wall rests, when a building is shored up to allow of alterations in the lower part. -- Needle furze (Bo…

Small lines used to sling hammocks under the deck beams.

acid, and Ant: alkaline. Neutral axis, Neutral surface (Mech.), that line or plane, in a beam under transverse pressure, at which the fibers are neither stretched nor compressed, or where the longitudinal stress is zero. See Axis. -- Neutral equilibrium (Mech.), the kind of equilibrium of a body so placed that when m…

A bay window. See Bay window. The beams that thro' the oriel shine Make prisms in every carven glass. Tennyson.

he lowest deck of a vessel, esp. of a ship of war, consisting of a platform laid over the beams in the hold, on which the cables are coiled.

To shine forth. "Bright, outshining beams." Shak.

ntry is overlaid by the multitude which live upon it. Sir W. Raleigh. As when a cloud his beams doth overlay. Spenser. Framed of cedar overlaid with gold. Milton. And overlay With this portentous bridge the dark abyss. Milton.

A piece of timber fixed on a beam to fit the curve of the deck. W. C. Russel.

See Paddle staff (b), below. [Prov. Eng.] Paddle beam (Shipbuilding), one of two large timbers supporting the spring beam and paddle box of a steam vessel. -- Paddle board. See Paddle, n., 3. -- Paddle box, the structure inclosing the upper part of the paddle wheel of a steam vessel. -- Paddle shaft, the revolving s…

allel bar. (a) (Steam Eng.) A rod in a parallel motion which is parallel with the working beam. (b) One of a pair of bars raised about five feet above the floor or ground, and parallel to each other, -- used for gymnastic exercises. -- Parallel circles of a sphere, those circles of the sphere whose planes are parallel…

s. Patriarchal cross (Her.), a cross, the shaft of which is intersected by two transverse beams, the upper one being the smaller. See Illust.