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The quality or state of being irrelative; want of connection or relation.

A committee for determining relative merit or awarding prizes at an exhibition or competition; as, the art jury gave him the first prize. Jury of inquest, a coroner's jury. See Inquest.

A wedge to unite two or more pieces, or adjust their relative position; a cotter; a forelock. See Illusts. of Cotter, and Gib.

Relatives; persons of the same family or race. The father, mother, and the kinbeside. Dryden. You are of kin, and so a friend to their persons. Bacon.

Relatives by blood or marriage, more properly the former; relations; persons related to each other. I think there's no man is secure But the queen's kindred. Shak.

Relatives; kindred; kin; persons of the same family or closely or closely related families. They sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. Luke ii. 44.

A female relative. Shak.

W. Hamilton. To use a word of Bacon's, now unfortunately obsolete, we must determine the relative value of knowledges. H. Spencer.

An instrument for estimating the amount of cream contained in milk by ascertaining its relative opacity.

A woman having proprietary rights or authority; mistress; -- a feminine correlative of lord. "Lord or lady of high degree." Lowell. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, . . . We make thee lady. Shak.

celeration of the time of high water, in the second and fourth quarters; depending on the relative positions of the sun and moon. -- Lag screw, an iron bolt with a square head, a sharp-edged thread, and a sharp point, adapted for screwing into wood; a screw for fastening lags.

ion of the eye, or for comparing different lights, as to their constituent color or their relative whiteness.

The quality of weighing less than something else of equal bulk; relative lightness, especially as shown by rising through, or floating upon, a contiguous substance; buoyancy; -- opposed to gravity. He gave the form of levity to that which ascended; to that which descended, the form of gravity. Sir. W. Raleigh. This bub…

the moon, any one of those small periodical changes in the position of the moon's surface relatively to the earth, in consequence of which narrow portions at opposite limbs become visible or invisible alternately. It receives different names according to the manner in which it takes place; as: (a) Libration in longitud…

ber, or resembling liber. Libriform cells, peculiar wood cells which are very slender and relatively thick- walled, and occasionally are furnished with bordered pits. Goodale.

The proper relative position or adjustment of parts, not as to design or proportion, but with reference to smooth working; as, the engine is in line or out of line or out of line.

a mechanism, as the fixed frame, or a rod, wheel, mass of confined liquid, etc., by which relative motion of other parts is produced and constrained.

A substance whose parts change their relative position on the slightest pressure, and therefore retain no definite form; any substance in the state of liquidity; a fluid that is not aëriform.

The perceptive faculty concerned with the ability to remember the relative positions of places.

Prolonged, or relatively more prolonged, in utterance; -- said of vowels and syllables. See Short, a., 13, and Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 22, 30.