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invention; a project; a scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem; an artifice. His device in against Babylon, to destroy it. Jer. li. 11. Their recent device of demanding benevolences. Hallam. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty. Job v. 12.

Full of devices; inventive. [R.] A carpet, rich, and of deviceful thread. Chapman.

In a deviceful manner. [R.]

Uncommonly nice and exact; precise; particular. You are rather point-devise in your accouterments. Shak. Thus he grew up, in logic point-devise, Perfect in grammar, and in rhetoric nice. Longfellow.

Dress; trappings; equipment; specifically, the devices and equipments worn by soldiers. How gay with all the accouterments of war!

A hook, eyelet, or other device by which a piano wire is so held as to limit the vibration.

Any device, as a balloon, aëroplane, etc., for floating in, or flying through, the air.

oops for attacking an enemy unexpectedly from a concealed station. Hence: Unseen peril; a device to entrap; a snare. Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege Or ambush from the deep. Milton.

One who goes before; a predecessor. The successor seldom prosecuting his antecessor's devices. Sir E. Sandys.

An odd imagery, device, or tracery; a fantastic figure. Woven with antics and wild imagery. Spenser.

A device, one form of which consists of a scratched deposit of silver on glass, used in connection with the receiving apparatus for reading wireless signals. The electric waves falling on this contrivance increase its resistance several times. The anticoherer can be used in conjunction with a telephone.…

The thing applied or used as a means to an end; an apparatus or device; as, to use various appliances; a mechanical appliance; a machine with its appliances.

steel bow set in a shaft of wood, furnished with a string and a trigger, and a mechanical device for bending the bow. It served to throw arrows, darts, bullets, etc. [Written also arbalet and arblast.] Fosbroke.

Skillful plan; device. They employed every art to soothe . . . the discontented warriors. Macaulay.

Crafty device; an artful, ingenious, or elaborate trick.

hed to an instrument, machine, or other object; as, a sewing machine attachment (i. e., a device attached to a sewing machine to enable it to do special work, as tucking, etc.).

n; self-acting or self-regulating under fixed conditions; -- esp. applied to machinery or devices in which certain things formerly or usually done by hand are done by the machine or device itself; as, the automatic feed of a lathe; automatic gas lighting; an automatic engine or switch; an automatic mouse.…

urial column changes the indication of the tube. With the aid of electrical or mechanical devices adapted to it, it is used for the automatic regulation of the temperature of rooms warmed artificially, and as a fire alarm. -- Balance of torsion. See Torsion Balance. -- Balance of trade (Pol. Econ.), an equilibrium be…

admit of motion in every direction within certain limits. -- Ball bearings, a mechanical device for lessening the friction of axle bearings by means of small loose metal balls. -- Ball cartridge, a cartridge containing a ball, as distinguished from a blank cartridge, containing only powder. -- Ball cock, a faucet or…

A large piece of silk or other cloth, with a device or motto, extended on a crosspiece, and borne in a procession, or suspended in some conspicuous place.