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ce to minute particles, or to a fine powder; to pulverize; to triturate; to grind; as, to comminute chalk or bones; to comminute food with the teeth. Pennant. Comminuted fracture. See under Fracture.

act of reducing to a fine powder or to small particles; pulverization; the state of being comminuted. Bentley.

An apparatus for the separation of dry comminuted ore, by exposing it to intermittent puffs of air. Knight.

To reduce to fine particles by pounding or grinding; to comminute; as, to crush quartz.

Fine, dry particles of earth or other matter, so comminuted that they may be raised and wafted by the wind; that which is crumbled too minute portions; fine powder; as, clouds of dust; bone dust. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Gen. iii. 19. Stop! -- for thy tread is on an empire's dust. Byron.…

Not coarse; comminuted; in small particles; as, fine sand or flour.

freshly broken surface; as, a compact fracture; an even, hackly, or conchoidal fracture. Comminuted fracture (Surg.), a fracture in which the bone is broken into several parts. -- Complicated fracture (Surg.), a fracture of the bone combined with the lesion of some artery, nervous trunk, or joint. -- Compound fractu…

To reduce to fine particles, or to small pieces, in a mill; to grind; to comminute.

To comminute and pulverize by beating; to bruise or break into fine particles with a pestle or other heavy instrument; as, to pound spice or salt.

To reduce to fine particles; to pound, grind, or rub into a powder; to comminute; to pulverize; to triturate.

Fine particles of stone, esp. of siliceous stone, but not reduced to dust; comminuted stone in the form of loose grains, which are not coherent when wet. That finer matter, called sand, is no other than very small pebbles. Woodsward.

To rub or grind to a very fine or impalpable powder; to pulverize and comminute thoroughly.

See Shield fern, under Shield. -- Wood fiber. (a) (Bot.) Fibrovascular tissue. (b) Wood comminuted, and reduced to a powdery or dusty mass. -- Wood fretter (Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of beetles whose larvæ bore in the wood, or beneath the bark, of trees. -- Wood frog (Zoöl.), a common North American frog…