Search the Dictionary

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 quadrilateral, tailless kite, with convex surfaces exposed to the wind. This kite was extensively used by Eddy in his famous meteorological experiments. It is now generally superseded by the box kite.

The name given to a hypothetical element, -- later discovered and called gallium. See Gallium, and cf. Ekabor.

An order of holothurians mostly found in the deep sea. They are remarkable for their bilateral symmetry and curious forms. [Written also Elasmopoda.]

ks and trials; as, elastic spirits; an elastic constitution. Elastic bitumen. (Min.) See Elaterite. -- Elastic curve. (a) (Geom.) The curve made by a thin elastic rod fixed horizontally at one end and loaded at the other. (b) (Mech.) The figure assumed by the longitudinal axis of an originally straight bar under any s…

g the degree of rarefaction of air contained in the receiver of an air pump. [Spelt also elaterometer.]

To bring to light; to make clear. Sclater (1654).

The style of the epigram. Antithesis, i. e., bilateral stroke, is the soul of epigram in its later and technical signification. B. Cracroft.

In insects: The lateral piece behind the episternum. [Written also epimerum.]

One of the first pair of lateral plates in the plastron of turtles.

One of the lateral lobes of the foot in certain gastropods.

One of the lateral pieces next to the sternum in the thorax of insects.

god of love; -- by earlier writers represented as one of the first and creative gods, by later writers as the son of Aphrodite, equivalent to the Latin god Cupid.

Away from the mesial plane of the body; lateral. External angles. (Geom.) See under Angle.

One of the smaller cannon used in the 15th century and later.

timber below the main keel, used to serve both as a protection and to increase the shio's lateral resistance. -- False key, a picklock. -- False leg. (Zoöl.) See Proleg. -- False membrane (Med.), the fibrinous deposit formed in croup and diphtheria, and resembling in appearance an animal membrane. -- False papers (…

Flattened and laterally widened, as are often the stems of the garden cockscomb.

A small lateral lode falling into the main lode or mineral vein. Ure.

The young or embryo of an animal in the womb, or in the egg; often restricted to the later stages in the development of viviparous and oviparous animals, embryo being applied to the earlier stages. [Written also foetus.]

l close to the wind and to make the least possible leeway by offering great resistance to lateral motion through the water.