Search the Dictionary

A substitute for lithography, in which metallic plates are used instead of stone. Knight.

An instrument like a pianoforte, but having metal bars instead of strings.

which one word is put for another that suggests it; as, we say, a man keeps a good table instead of good provisions; we read Virgil, that is, his poems; a man has a warm heart, that is, warm affections.

To suppress or weaken the force of; to extenuate; to palliate; to tell by degrees, instead of directly and frankly; to clip, as words or expressions; to utter half and keep back half of. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say -- "I love you." Shak. Siren, now mince the sin, And mollify damnation with a…

ngeance is mine; I will repay." Rom. xii. 19. Also, in the old style, used attributively, instead of my, before a noun beginning with a vowel. I kept myself from mine iniquity. Ps. xviii. 23.

Specifically: To give doubt and apprehension to, instead of confidence and courage; to impart fear to; to make irresolute; -- usually said of the mind or heart, and followed by the objective personal pronoun. So doth my heart misgive me in these conflicts What may befall him, to his harm and ours. Shak. Such whose cons…

A fixed compensation or equivalent given instead of payment of tithes in kind, expressed in full by the phrase modus decimandi. Blackstone. They, from time immemorial, had paid a modus, or composition. Landor. Modus operandi ( Etym: [L.], manner of operating.

Homophonic; -- applied to music in which the melody is confined to one part, instead of being shared by all the parts as in the style called polyphonic.

With an adjective or adverb (instead of the suffix -er) to form the comparative degree; as, more durable; more active; more sweetly. Happy here, and more happy hereafter. Bacon.

above the common surface of the surrounding land; a mountain; a high hill; -- used always instead of mountain, when put before a proper name; as, Mount Washington; otherwise, chiefly in poetry.

Having finlike appendages or flukes instead of legs, as a cetacean.

hasis, my own self or person; as I myself will do it; I have done it myself; -- used also instead of me, as the object of the first person of a reflexive verb, without emphasis; as, I will defend myself.

A term used by modern archæologists instead of cella. See Cella.

a loom in which the weft thread is carried through the shed by a long eye-pointed needle instead of by a shuttle. -- Needle ore (Min.), acicular bismuth; a sulphide of bismuth, lead, and copper occuring in acicular crystals; -- called also aikinite. -- Needle shell (Zoöl.), a sea urchin. -- Needle spar (Min.), arag…

t a little of a thing, as by taking small bits cautiously; as, fishes nibble at the bait. Instead of returning a full answer to my book, he manifestly falls a- nibbling at one single passage. Tillotson.

To annul indirectly by enacting a new and contrary law, instead of by expressly abrogating or repealing the old one. [Obs.] Bailey.

the representative of the Greek diphthong oe. In many words in common use, e alone stands instead of oe. Classicists prefer to write the diphthong oe separate in Latin words.

ting; swinging. Oscillating engine, a steam engine whose cylinder oscillates on trunnions instead of being permanently fixed in a perpendicular or other direction. Weale.

Being, or accomplished, over the land, instead of by sea; as, an overland journey.

An elephant that is furnished with a pad for carrying burdens instead of with a howdah for carrying passengers.