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Firm-footed; determined. [Slang, U.S.]

Not funded; not fixed, invested, or determined; as, floating capital; a floating debt. Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island. Macaulay. Floating anchor (Naut.), a drag or sea anchor; drag sail. -- Floating battery (Mil.), a battery erected on rafts or the hulls of shi…

in one direction and now in another; to be wavering or unsteady; to be irresolute or undetermined; to vacillate.

Browning. Foregone conclusion, one which has preceded argument or examination; one predetermined.

To ordain or appoint beforehand; to preordain; to predestinate; to predetermine. Hooker.

That by which shape is given or determined; mold; pattern; model.

To reject or renounce upon oath; hence, to renounce earnestly, determinedly, or with protestations. I . . . do forswear her. Shak.

with yttrium and other rare metals. Its individuality and properties have not yet been determined.

To measure or determine with a gauge.

Pertaining to, concerned with, or determined by, the genesis of anything, or its natural mode of production or development. This historical, genetical method of viewing prior systems of philosophy. Hare.

That branch of applied mathematics which determines, by means of observations and measurements, the figures and areas of large portions of the earth's surface, or the general figure and dimenshions of the earth; or that branch of surveying in which the curvature of the earth is taken into account, as in the surveys of…

Of or pertaining to gebdesy; obtained or determined by the operations of geodesy; engaged in geodesy; geodesic; as, geodetic surveying; geodetic observers. Geodetic line or curve, the shortest line that can be drawn between two points on the elipsoidal surface of the earth; a curve drawn on any given surface so that th…

Pertaining to, or according to the rules or principles of, geometry; determined by geometry; as, a geometrical solution of a problem.

Pertaining to, or determined by means of, a goniometer; trigonometric.

prepare gradually; to arrange, temper, or modify by degrees or to a certain degree; to determine the degrees of; as, to graduate the heat of an oven. Dyers advance and graduate their colors with salts. Browne.

One who determines or indicates graduation; as, a graduator of instruments.

f which is to support and nourish it. The two unite and become one tree, but the graft determines the kind of fruit.

posite particles of any substance; that arrangement of the particles of any body which determines its comparative roughness or hardness; texture; as, marble, sugar, sandstone, etc., of fine grain. Hard box, and linden of a softer grain. Dryden.

les of any science; as, a grammar of geography. Comparative grammar, the science which determines the relations of kindred languages by examining and comparing their grammatical forms. -- Grammar school. (a) A school, usually endowed, in which Latin and Greek grammar are taught, as also other studies preparatory to co…

v. Gravimetric analysis (Chem.), analysis in which the amounts of the coastituents are determined by weight; -- in distinction from volumetric analysis.