Search the Dictionary

The faculty of acting or of exerting power; the state of being in action; action; instrumentality. The superintendence and agency of Providence in the natural world. Woodward.

Pertaining to violent contests, bodily or mental; pertaining to athletic or polemic feats; athletic; combative; hence, strained; unnatural. As a scholar, he [Dr. Parr] was brilliant, but he consumed his power in agonistic displays. De Quincey.

One of the ornamental tags, cords, or loops on some military and naval uniforms.

To affect with pain or uneasiness, either physical or mental; to trouble; to be the matter with; -- used to express some uneasiness or affection, whose cause is unknown; as, what ails the man I know not what ails him. What aileth thee, Hagar Gen. xxi. 17.

stalagmite. The name is used in this sense by Pliny. It is sometimes distinguished as oriental alabaster.

An ornamental evergreen shrub (Rhamnus alaternus) belonging to the buckthorns.

A soft ornamental terra-cotta pottery, sold in the biscuit state for decorating.

An oriental shrub (Lawsonia inermis) from which henna is obtained.

A small ornamental building with seats, or an arched seat, in a pleasure ground; a garden bower. Cowper.

obably due to a specific bacillus. Called also Aleppo ulcer, Biskara boil, Delhi boil, Oriental sore, etc.

of its points involves only the ordinary operations of algebra; -- opposed to a transcendental curve.

Mental alienation; derangement of the mental faculties; insanity; as, alienation of mind.

Pertaining to aliment or food, or to the function of nutrition; nutritious; alimental; as, alimentary substances. Alimentary canal, the entire channel, extending from the mouth to the anus, by which aliments are conveyed through the body, and the useless parts ejected.

To lighten or lessen (physical or mental troubles); to mitigate, or make easier to be endured; as, to alleviate sorrow, pain, care, etc. ; -- opposed to aggravate. The calamity of the want of the sense of hearing is much alleviated by giving the use of letters. Bp. Horsley.

To agitate; to affect mentally. [Obs.] Milton.

An ornamental shrub (Hibiscus Syriacus) of the Mallow family.

sung by the lowest female, or contralto, voices, between in tenor and soprano. In instrumental music it now signifies the tenor.

A genus of ornamental annual plants (Amaranthus) of many species, with green, purplish, or crimson flowers.

ple or bluish violet color, of different shades. It is much used as a jeweler's stone. Oriental amethyst, the violet-blue variety of transparent crystallized corundum or sapphire.

an English Saxon, or one the Saxons who settled in England, as distinguished from a continental (or "Old") Saxon.