Search the Dictionary

tion from a rotary engine, in which the piston travels continuously in one direction in a circular path. -- Reciprocating motion (Mech.), motion alternately backward and forward, or up and down, as of a piston rod.

A division of Echini which includes the circular, or regular, sea urchins.

undergoing within the rhomb, at other faces, two reflections. It is used to produce a ray circularly polarized from a plane-polarized ray, or the reverse. Nichol.

The border, edge, or margin of a thing, usually of something circular or curving; as, the rim of a kettle or basin.

A circle, or a circular line, or anything in the form of a circular line or hoop.

Having circular streaks or lines on the body; as, ring-streaked goats.

To turn; to move circularly. And his red eyeballs roll with living fire. Dryden.

A circular shield carried by foot soldiers.

The card of the mariner's compass; also, a circular card with radiating lines, used in other instruments.

Round; circular; spherical.

ortion of the surface or of the circumference equally distant from the center; spherical; circular; having a form approaching a spherical or a circular shape; orbicular; globular; as, a round ball. "The big, round tears." Shak. Upon the firm opacous globe Of this round world. Milton.

A small circular shield, sometimes not more than a foot in diameter, used by soldiers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

A house for locomotive engines, built circularly around a turntable.

A plane made like a spokeshave, for working the inside edges of circular sashes.

A thick, circular disk of wood, to which the cartridge bag and projectile are attached, in fixed ammunition for cannon; also, a piece of soft metal attached to a projectile to take the groove of the rifling.

(Ammocrypta pellucida). -- Sand dollar (Zoöl.), any one of several species of small flat circular sea urchins, which live on sandy bottoms, especially Echinarachnius parma of the American coast. -- Sand drift, drifting sand; also, a mound or bank of drifted sand. -- Sand eel. (Zoöl.) (a) A lant, or launce. (b) A sle…

A tool with a semicircular edge, -- used by engravers to clear away the spaces between the lines of an engraving. Fairholt.

The slips or plates of metal out of which circular balnks have been cut for the purpose of coinage.

Hence, the circular tube, with a brim, in a candlestick, into which the candle is inserted.

A right line drawn from the center of a circle through one end of a circular arc, and terminated by a tangent drawn from the other end; the number expressing the ratio line of this line to the radius of the circle. See Trigonometrical function, under Function.