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A quantity to be applied in computing the mean place or other element of a celestial body; that is, any one of the several quantities to be added to, or taken from, its position as calculated on the hypothesis of a mean uniform motion, in order to find its true position as resulting from its actual and unequal motion.…

That comparative quantity by weight of an element which possesses the same chemical value as other elements, as determined by actual experiment and reference to the same standard. Specifically:

A rare metallic element associated with several other rare elements in the mineral gadolinite from Ytterby in Sweden. Symbol Er. Atomic weight 165.9. Its salts are rose-colored and give characteristic spectra. Its sesquioxide is called erbia.

The constituent elementary notions which constitute a complex notion, and must be enumerated to define it; sometimes called the nominal essence.

A metallic element of the rare-earth group, discovered spectroscopically by Demarcay in 1896. Symbol, Eu; at. wt., 152.0.

The property manifested by living organisms, and the elements and tissues of which they are constituted, of responding to the action of stimulants; irritability; as, nervous excitability.

One of the elements or quantities which, when multiplied together, from a product.

The element of chance in the affairs of life; the unforeseen and unestimated conitions considered as a force shaping events; fortune; esp., opposing circumstances against which it is useless to struggle; as, fate was, or the fates were, against him. A brave man struggling in the storms of fate. Pope. Sometimes an hour…

Hot; glowing; boiling; burning; as, a fervent summer. The elements shall melt with fervent heat. 2 Pet. iii. 10.

A minute thread of fiber, as one of the fibrous elements of a muscular fiber; a fibril.

A limiting element or quality. [R.] The essential finific in the form of the finite. Coleridge.

d substance or in a solid form; reduction to a non-volatile condition; -- said of gaseous elements.

A binary compound of fluorine with another element or radical. Calcium fluoride (Min.), fluorite, CaF2. See Fluorite.

A non-metallic, gaseous element, strongly acid or negative, or associated with chlorine, bromine, and iodine, in the halogen group of which it is the first member. It always occurs combined, is very active chemically, and possesses such an avidity for most elements, and silicon especially, that it can neither be prepar…

A double fluoride of silicon and some other (usually basic) element or radical, regarded as a salt of fluosilicic acid; -- called also silicofluoride.

A combination of syllables consisting a metrical element of a verse, the syllables being formerly distinguished by their quantity or length, but in modern poetry by the accent.

senses, or the intellect; as, water assumes the form of ice or snow. In modern usage, the elements of a conception furnished by the mind's own activity, as contrasted with its object or condition, which is called the matter; subjectively, a mode of apprehension or belief conceived as dependent on the constitution of th…

ertaining to the foundation or basis; serving for the foundation. Hence: Essential, as an element, principle, or law; important; original; elementary; as, a fundamental truth; a fundamental axiom. The fundamental reasons of this war. Shak. Some fundamental antithesis in nature. Whewell. Fundamental bass (Mus.), the roo…

A rare earth, regarded by some as an oxide of the supposed element gadolinium, by others as only a mixture of the oxides of yttrium, erbium, ytterbium, etc.

A supposed rare metallic element, with a characteristic spectrum, found associated with yttrium and other rare metals. Its individuality and properties have not yet been determined.