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Spurious; fictitious; sham; -- a cant term originally applied to counterfeit coin, and hence denoting anything counterfeit. [Colloq. U. S.]

An instrument for measuring minute quantities of radiant heat, especially in different parts of the spectrum; -- called also actinic balance, thermic balance. S. P. Langley.

ften with up. To bolster baseness. Drayton. Shoddy inventions designed to bolster up a factitious pride. Compton Reade.

A prayer or petition. [Obs.] For which to God he made so many an idle boon. Spenser.

A space with a few seats partitioned off in a theater, or other place of public amusement. Laughed at by the pit, box, galleries, nay, stage. Dorset. The boxes and the pit are sovereign judges. Dryden.

A noisy, rapid, shuffling dance engaged in competitively by a number of persons or pairs in succession, as among the colored people of the Southern United States, and so called, perhaps, because the exercise is continued until most of those who take part in it break down.

A low wall or vertical partition in the fire chamber of a furnace, for deflecting flame, etc.; -- usually called a bridge wall. Aqueduct bridge. See Aqueduct. -- Asses' bridge, Bascule bridge, Bateau bridge. See under Ass, Bascule, Bateau. -- Bridge of a steamer (Naut.), a narrow platform across the deck, above the r…

ng a brownish vapor at the ordinary temperature. In combination it is found in minute quantities in sea water, and in many saline springs. It occurs also in the mineral bromyrite.

A partition in a vessel, to separate apartments on the same deck.

An apparatus for delivering measured quantities of liquid or for measuring the quantity of liquid or gas received or discharged. It consists essentially of a graduated glass tube, usually furnished with a small aperture and stopcock.

other ingredients intermixed, as an imitation of butter. The manufacturers ship large quantities of oleomargarine to England, Holland, and other countries, to be manufactured into butter, which is sold as butterine or suine. Johnson's Cyc.

A superstitious devotion to the mysteries of the religion which one professes. [R] Emerson.

ions, a branch of mathematics in which the laws of dependence which bind the variable quantities together are themselves subject to change. -- Differential calculus, a method of investigating mathematical questions by using the ratio of certain indefinitely small quantities called differentials. The problems are prima…

Measurement of the quantities of heat in bodies.

ic acid, C7H15.CO2H, and Caproic acid, C5H11.CO2H, are fatty acids occurring in small quantities in butter, cocoanut oil, etc., united with glycerin; they are colorless oils, or white crystalline solids, of an unpleasant odor like that of goats or sweat.

stance of a point from lines or planes; -- used in a system of representing geometric quantities, invented by Descartes. -- Cartesian devil, a small hollow glass figure, used in connection with a jar of water having an elastic top, to illustrate the effect of the compression or expansion of air in changing the specifi…

ty-five and fifty years of age. -- Change ringing, the continual production, without repetition, of changes on bells, See def. 9. above. -- Change wheel (Mech.), one of a set of wheels of different sizes and number of teeth, that may be changed or substituted one for another in machinery, to produce a different but d…

abet; -- formerly so called, either from the cross usually set before it, or from a superstitious custom, sometimes practiced, of writing it in the form of a cross, by way of a charm. From infant conning of the Christcross-row. Wordsworth.

d from storax and oil of cinnamon, now made from certain benzene derivatives in large quantities, and used for the artificial production of indigo.

oise, esp. that made by the collision of hard bodies; also, any loud, abrupt sound; a repetition of abrupt sounds. The goose let fall a golden egg With cackle and with clatter. Tennyson.