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A choice or select body; the flower; as, the élite of society.

One of a sect in Africa (4th century), mentioned by St. Augustine, who states that they married, but lived in continence, after the manner, as they pretended, of Abel.

An earth abounding in pyrites, used by the ancients to kill insects, etc., on vines; -- applied by Brongniart to a carbonaceous alum schist.

A friar of a mendicant order (the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel) established on Mount Carmel, in Syria, in the twelfth century; a White Friar.

Of or pertaining to the order of Carmelites.

A sulphide of chromium observed in some meteoric irons.

Concealment; seclusion; retirement. The delitescence of mental activities. Sir W. Hamilton.

racterized, to speak craniologically, by an extraordinary development of the passion for delitescency. Sir W. Scott.

Lying hid; concealed.

A white crystallized mineral resin from the Fichtelgebirge, Bavaria.

A descendant of Ishmael (the son of Abraham and Hagar), of whom it was said, "His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." Gen. xvi. 12.

One of a sect of Mohammedans who favored the pretensions of the family of Mohammed ben Ismael, of the house Ali.

A descendant of Israel, or Jacob; a Hebrew; a Jew.

A mineral of a gray, red, brown, or green color, and glistening luster. It is a silicate of iron and manganese.

One of an ancient sect who held that Christ had but one will as he had but one nature. Cf. Monophysite. Gibbon.

A mineral occuring at Vesuvius, in glassy agonal crystals; also elsewhere, in grayish or greenish masses having a greasy luster, as the variety elæolite. It is a silicate of aluminia, soda, and potash.

A variety of limestone, consisting of small round grains, resembling the roe of a fish. It sometimes constitutes extensive beds, as in the European Jurassic. See the Chart of Geology.

A micaceous mineral occurring in small scales. It is characteristic of certain crystalline schists.

An apple-green mineral having a greasy feel. It is a hydrous silicate of nickel, magnesia, aluminia, and iron.

Popularly, any modern artist thought to be a would-be restorer of early ideas or methods, as one of the German painters often called Nazarenes, or one who paints and draws with extreme minuteness of detail.