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Of great price; costly; as, a precious stone. "The precious bane." Milton.

In a precious manner; expensively; extremely; dearly. Also used ironically.

The quality or state of being precious; costliness; dearness.

Somewhat precious; as, semiprecious stones or metals.

Miraculous power of transmuting something common into something precious. Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. Shak.

One who, or that which, amalgamates. Specifically: A machine for separating precious metals from earthy particles by bringing them in contact with a body of mercury with which they form an amalgam.

That which annoys. A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair, Any annoyance in that precious sense. Shak.

A chest, or coffer. [Obs.] Bearing that precious relic in an ark. Spenser.

that a ton of 2000 avoirdupois pounds does to the troy ounce, the weight in milligrams of precious metal obtained from an assay ton of ore gives directly the number of ounces to the ton.

Of little comparative value, as metal inferior to gold and silver, the precious metals.

A series of stamps operated by one motive power, for crushing ores containing the precious metals. Knight.

ance mentioned in the Bible (Gen. ii. 12, and Num. xi. 7), variously taken to be a gum, a precious stone, or pearls, or perhaps a kind of amber found in Arabia.

Blessing; beatitude; benediction. Shak. More precious than the benison of friends. Talfourd.

To smear with any viscous, glutinous matter; to bedaub; to soil. Besmeared with precious balm. Spenser.

ral defect or by deprivation; without sight. He that is strucken blind can not forget The precious treasure of his eyesight lost. Shak.

A composition, written or printed; a treatise. A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Milton.

ephod. It was a double piece of richly embroidered stuff, a span square, set with twelve precious stones, on which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. See Ephod.

A foul vein, like chalcedony, in some precious stones.

The weight by which precious stones and pearls are weighed.

A charge or bearing supposed to represent the precious stone. It has eight scepters or staves radiating from a common center. Called also escarbuncle.