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Belonging to,or concerning, a focus; as, a focal point. Focal distance, or length,of a lens or mirror (Opt.), the distance of the focus from the surface of the lens or mirror, or more exactly, in the case of a lens, from its optical center. --Focal distance of a telescope, the distance of the image of an object from th…

rectrix that the ratio of the distace between any point of the curve and the focus to the distance of the same point from the directrix is constant.

The amount of illumination produced by a standard candle at a distance of one foot.

t to the spectator, and therefore occupies the lowest part of the work of art itself. Cf. Distance, n., 6.

Held at a distance; excluded; exiled. [Obs.] Kept him a foreign man still; which so grieved him, That he ran mad and died. Shak. Foreign attachment (Law), a process by which the property of a foreign or absent debtor is attached for the satisfaction of a debt due from him to the plaintiff; an attachment of the goods, e…

In time past, either in time immediately preceding or at any indefinite distance; of old; heretofore.

To a greater distance; in addition; moreover. See Farther. Carries us, I know not how much further, into familiar company. M. Arnold. They sdvanced us far as Eleusis and Thria; but no further. Jowett (Thucyd. ). Further off, not so near; apart by a greater distance.

At the greatest distance; farthest.

our wars against the French of old, we used to gall them with our longbows, at a greater distance than they could shoot their arrows. Addison.

e one of a combination or gang of saws hung together in a frame or sash, and set at fixed distances apart. -- Gang tide. See Gang week (below). -- Gang tooth, a projecting tooth. [Obs.] Halliwell. -- Gang week, Rogation week, when formerly processions were made to survey the bounds of parishes. Halliwell. -- Live g…

A measure; a standard of measure; an instrument to determine dimensions, distance, or capacity; a standard. This plate must be a gauge to file your worm and groove to equal breadth by. Moxon. There is not in our hands any fixed gauge of minds. I. Taylor.

ving out, anything uttered or asserted; an outgiving. His givings out were of an infinite distance From his true meant design. Shak.

of sight being taken in the axis produced beyond the surface of the opposite hemisphere a distance equal to the radius of the sphere into the sine of 45º. -- Globular sailing, sailing on the arc of a great circle, or so as to make the shortest distance between two places; circular sailing.

Of or pertaining to the jaw. Gnathic index, in a skull, the ratio of the distance from the middle of the nasofrontal suture to the basion (taken equal to 100), to the distance from the basion to the middle of the front edge of the upper jaw; -- called also alveolar index. Skulls with the gnathic index below 98 are orth…

. . but it goes down whole with him for truth. L' Estrange. -- To go far. (a) To go to a distance. (b) To have much weight or influence. -- To go for. (a) To go in quest of. (b) To represent; to pass for.

lly stated as so many feet per mile, or as one foot rise or fall in so many of horizontal distance; as, a heavy grade; a grade of twenty feet per mile, or of 1 in 264.

A farm; generally, a farm with a house at a distance from neighbors.

enormous; expanded; -- opposed to small and little; as, a great house, ship, farm, plain, distance, length.

ll or undulation of the ocean, caused by a long continued gale, and felt even at a remote distance after the gale has ceased. -- Ground table. (Arch.) See Earth table, under Earth. -- Ground tackle (Naut.), the tackle necessary to secure a vessel at anchor. Totten. -- Ground thrush (Zoöl.), one of numerous species o…

A weapon which throws or propels a missile to a distance; any firearm or instrument for throwing projectiles by the explosion of gunpowder, consisting of a tube or barrel closed at one end, in which the projectile is placed, with an explosive charge behind, which is ignited by various means. Muskets, rifles, carbines,…