Search the Dictionary

Anything towed in the water to retard a ship's progress, or to keep her head up to the wind; esp., a canvas bag with a hooped mouth, so used. See Drag sail (below).

A genus of cucurbitaceous plants consisting of the single species Ecballium agreste (or Elaterium), the squirting cucumber. Its fruit, when ripe, bursts and violently ejects its seeds, together with a mucilaginous juice, from which elaterium, a powerful cathartic medicine, is prepared.

A digression in which a person is introduced speaking his own words.

Impudence or boldness in confronting or in transgressing the bounds of duty or decorum; insulting presumptuousness; shameless boldness; barefaced assurance. Corruption lost nothing of its effrontery. Bancroft.

Am assembly or session of the Welsh bards; an annual congress of bards, minstrels and literati of Wales, -- being a patriotic revival of the old custom.

r nineteenth century is wonderfully set up in its own esteem, wonderfully elate at its progress. Mrs. H. H. Jackson.

iple of elaterium, being found in the juice of the wild or squirting cucumber (Ecballium agreste, formerly Motordica Elaterium) and other related species. It is extracted as a bitter, white, crystalline substance, which is a violent purgative.

sh cakes, as the dried residue of the juice of the wild or squirting cucumber (Ecballium agreste, formerly called Momordica Elaterium).

ance and effort for; to guide the course of; to manage; as, to engineer a bill through Congress. [Colloq.]

title or description of (a book, picture, map, etc.); as, "entered according to act of Congress."

The act of entering or going into; ingress; as, the entrance of a person into a house or an apartment; hence, the act of taking possession, as of property, or of office; as, the entrance of an heir upon his inheritance, or of a magistrate into office.

The act of entering or passing into or upon; entrance; ingress; hence, beginnings or first attempts; as, the entry of a person into a house or city; the entry of a river into the sea; the entry of air into the blood; an entry upon an undertaking.

purpose of giving a greater variety to the events related; an incidental narrative, or digression, separable from the main subject, but naturally arising from it.

Having equal differences; as, the terms of arithmetical progression are equidifferent.

A moral offense; violation of duty; a sin or transgression; iniquity; fault. Ps. xix. 12.

That which escapes attention or restraint; a mistake; an oversight; also, transgression. [Obs.] I should have been more accurate, and corrected all those former escapes. Burton.

That series of changes under natural law which involves continuous progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous in structure, and from the single and simple to the diverse and manifold in quality or function. The pocess is by some limited to organic beings; by others it is applied to the inorganic and the psychic…

cedent for; to exemplify; to give an instance of; to instance. [Obs.] "I may example my digression by some mighty precedent." Shak. Burke devoted himself to this duty with a fervid assiduity that has not often been exampled, and has never been surpassed. J. Morley.

An undue indulgence of the appetite; transgression of proper moderation in natural gratifications; intemperance; dissipation. Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. Eph. v. 18. Thy desire . . . leads to no excess That reaches blame. Milton.

A wandering from a subject; digression. I am not in a scribbling mood, and shall therefore make no excursions. Cowper.