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An instrument or contrivance to size articles, or to determine their size by a standard, or to separate and distribute them according to size.

Display of art; exercise of ability; contrivance; address. [Obs.] Richard . . . by a thousand princely skills, gathering so much corn as if he meant not to return. Fuller.

-- Slide rail, a transfer table. See under Transfer. -- Slide rest (Turning lathes), a contrivance for holding, moving, and guiding, the cutting tool, made to slide on ways or guides by screws or otherwise, and having compound motion. -- Slide rule, a mathematical instrument consisting of two parts, one of which sl…

A contrivance for sustaining anything by suspension; as:

In knitting machines, a contrivance for depressing the sinkers successively by passing over them.

A contrivance for turning a spit by means of a fly or wheel moved by the current of ascending air in a chimney.

A contrivance, often consisting of a noose of cord, or the like, by which a bird or other animal may be entangled and caught; a trap; a gin.

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

wledge. Locke. Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark. Wordsworth. Spark arrester, a contrivance to prevent the escape of sparks while it allows the passage of gas, -- chiefly used in the smokestack of a wood-burning locomotive. Called also spark consumer. [U.S.]

A contrivance for fastening the wheel of a vehicle, to prevent it from turning in going down a hill. To put a spoke in one's wheel, to thwart or obstruct one in the execution of some design.

as a ledger or other account or blank book) spring up and lie flat. -- Spring balance, a contrivance for measuring weight or force by the elasticity of a spiral spring of steel. -- Spring beam, a beam that supports the side of a paddle box. See Paddle beam, under Paddle, n. -- Spring beauty. (a) (Bot.) Any plant of…

A contrivance for recording the speed of a railway train. Knight.

An ill smell; an offensive odor; a stink. Cowper. Stench trap, a contrivance to prevent stench or foul air from rising from the openings of sewers, drains, etc.

The handle or contrivance by which bits are held in boring; a bitstock; a brace.

e finger upon the string, of an instrument of music, so as to modify the tone; hence, any contrivance by which the sounds of a musical instrument are regulated. The organ sound a time survives the stop. Daniel.

of sovereignity to posterity. Eikon Basilike. Sun and planet wheels (Mach.), an ingenious contrivance for converting reciprocating motion, as that of the working beam of a steam engine, into rotatory motion. It consists of a toothed wheel (called the sun wheel), firmly secured to the shaft it is desired to drive, and a…

head, as to the bough of a tree, a seat being placed in the loop at the bottom; also, any contrivance by which a similar motion is produced for amusement or exercise.

Any contrivance intended as a substitute for teasels in dressing cloth. Teasel frame, a frame or set of iron bars in which teasel heads are fixed for raising the nap on woolen cloth.

A machine or contrivance for indicating or recording something, particularly for keeping a check upon employees, as factory hands, watchmen, drivers, check takers, and the like, by revealing to their employers what they have done or omitted.

A contrivance for the conveyance of vehicles or loads by means of electricity. Fleeming Jenkin. Telpher line, or Telpher road, an electric line or road over which vehicles for carrying loads are moved by electric engines actuated by a current conveyed by the line.