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One of the small pedestals, for statues or other ornaments, placed on the apex and at the basal angles of a pediment. Acroteria are also sometimes placed upon the gables in Gothic architecture. J. H. Parker.

Doing duty for another; officiating; as, an superintendent.

d to rest; the doing of something; exertion of power or force, as when one body acts on another; the effect of power exerted on one body by another; agency; activity; operation; as, the action of heat; a man of action. One wise in council, one in action brave. Pope.

Involving or comprising action; active. [Obs.] Her walking and other actual performances. Shak. Let your holy and pious intention be actual; that is . . . by a special prayer or action, . . . given to God. Jer. Taylor.

ion it is to calculate for insurance companies the risks and premiums for life, fire, and other insurances.

influence actively; to move as motives do; -- more commonly used of persons. Wings, which others were contriving to actuate by the perpetual motion. Johnson. Men of the greatest abilities are most fired with ambition; and, on the contrary, mean and narrow minds are the least actuated by it. Addison.…

Tendency or impulse to act. [R.] Acturience, or desire of action, in one form or another, whether as restlessness, ennui, dissatisfaction, or the imagination of something desirable. J. Grote.

High, or shrill, in respect to some other sound; -- opposed to grave or low; as, an acute tone or accent.

To compel; to drive. [Obs.] Fotherby.

A stone imagined by some to be of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substance of extreme hardness; but in modern minerology it has no technical signification. It is now a rhetorical or poetical name for the embodiment of impenetrable hardness. Opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his amp…

e by way of increased possession (to any one); to bestow (on). The Lord shall add to me another son. Gen. xxx. 24.

To consign or intrust to the care of another, as agent or factor; as, the ship was addressed to a merchant in Baltimore. To address one's self to. (a) To prepare one's self for; to apply one's self to. (b) To direct one's speech or discourse to.

given point; -- a word applied to those muscles of the body which pull one part towards another. Opposed to abducent.

To revoke, as a legacy, grant, etc., or to satisfy it by some other gift.

A "brotherhood," or collection of stamens in a bundle; -- used in composition, as in the class names, Monadelphia, Diadelphia, etc.

To equalize; to make adequate. [R.] Fotherby.

Congenitally united with an organ of another kind, as calyx with ovary, or stamens with petals.

The union of parts which are separate in other plants, or in younger states of the same plant.

or in contact; to be contiguous; as, the houses adjoin. When one man's land adjoins to another's. Blackstone.

To put off or defer to another day, or indefinitely; to postpone; to close or suspend for the day; -- commonly said of the meeting, or the action, of convened body; as, to adjourn the meeting; to adjourn a debate. It is a common practice to adjourn the reformation of their lives to a further time. Barrow. 'Tis a needfu…