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A supposed alkaloid obtained from croton oil by boiling it with water and magnesia, since found to be merely a magnesia soap of the oil. Watts.

Often applied, especially in the plural, to parts which are supposed to resemble a pair of legs; as, the crura of the diaphragm, a pair of muscles attached to it; crura cerebri, two bundles of nerve fibers in the base of the brain, connecting the medulla and the forebrain.

The exterior portion of the earth, formerly universally supposed to inclose a molten interior.

ixed stars and the primum mobile (or outer circle of the heavens, which by its motion was supposed to carry round all those within it), in order to explain certain movements of the heavently bodies. -- Crystalline lens (Anat.), the capsular lenslike body in the eye, serving to focus the rays of light. It consists of r…

An organ of the Ctenophora, supposed to be sensory.

bark of a South American vine (Gonolobus Condurango) of the Milkweed family. It has been supposed, but erroneously, to be a cure for cancer. [Written also condurango.]

A blue coloring matter supposed by some to be one of the component parts ofchlorophyll.

A musical instrument used by the ancients. It is supposed to have been similar to the modern kettle drum, though perhaps smaller.

A nonnucleated mass of protoplasm, the supposed simplest form of independent life differing from the amoeba, in which nuclei are present.

Pertaining to Darwin; as, the Darwinian theory, a theory of the manner and cause of the supposed development of living things from certain original forms or elements.

eath damp, a cold sweat at the coming on of death. -- Death fire, a kind of ignis fatuus supposed to forebode death. And round about in reel and rout, The death fires danced at night. Coleridge. -- Death grapple, a grapple or struggle for life. -- Death in life, a condition but little removed from death; a living dea…

A celebrated collection of tales, supposed to be related in ten days; -- written in the 14th century, by Boccaccio, an Italian.

A supposed rare element, said to be associated with cerium, yttrium, etc., in the mineral samarskite, and more recently called samarium. Symbol Dp. See Samarium.

ution of the layers of molecules, applied to the faces of the primitive form, by which he supposed the secondary forms to be produced.

Large; chief; -- applied to an extraordinary billow, supposed by some to be every tenth in order. [R.] Also used substantively. "Such decuman billows." Gauden. "The baffled decuman." Lowell.

To be of opinion; to think; to estimate; to opine; to suppose. And deemest thou as those who pore, With aged eyes, short way before Emerson.

hose periphery either the heavenly body or the center of the heavenly body's epicycle was supposed to be carried round.

vinity, regarded by some as the author of creation, by others as a great magician who was supposed to command the spirits of the lower world. See Gorgon. Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon. Milton.

A substance, usually of a mucilaginous or oily nature, supposed to be capable of soothing an inflamed nervous membrane, or protecting i

To deprive of phlogiston, or the supposed principle of inflammability. Priestley. Dephlogisticated air, oxygen gas; -- so called by Dr. Priestly and others of his time. -- De`phlo*gis`ti*ca"tion, n.