Noah Webster

“ An apparatus for weighing.
μ In its simplest form, a balance consists of a beam or lever supported exactly in the middle, having two scales or basins of equal weight suspended from its extremities. Another form is that of the Roman balance, our steelyard, consisting of a lever or beam, suspended near one of its extremities, on the longer arm of which a counterpoise slides. The name is also given to other forms of apparatus for weighing bodies, as to the combinations of levers making up platform scales; and even to devices for weighing by the elasticity of a spring. ”

“ A combination is an organized union of individuals for mutual support, in urging their demands or resisting the clams of others, and may be good or bad according to circumstances; as, a combiviation of workmen or of employers to effect or to prevent a chang in prices. A cabal is a secret association of a few individuals who seek by cunning practices to abtain affice and power. A faction is a larger body that a cabal, employed for selfish purpoeses in agitating the community and working up an excitement with a view to chenge the existing order of things. ”

“ The flower of a plant, or the essential organs of reproduction, with their appendages; florescence; bloom; the flowers of a plant, collectively; as, the blossoms and fruit of a tree; an apple tree in blossom.
μ The term has been applied by some botanists, and is also applied in common usage, to the corolla. It is more commonly used than flower or bloom, when we have reference to the fruit which is to succeed. Thus we use flowers when we speak of plants cultivated for ornament, and bloom in a more general sense, as of flowers in general, or in reference to the beauty of flowers. ”

“ Hence the expressions, a clumsy appearance, and an awkward manner. When we speak figuratively of an awkward excuse, we think of a want of ease and grace in making it; when we speak of a clumsy excuse, we think of the whole thing as coarse and stupid. ”

“ To fail in musical quality; as, a singer's voice breaks when it is strained beyond its compass and a tone or note is not completed, but degenerates into an unmusical sound instead. Also, to change in tone, as a boy's voice at puberty. ”

“ Our burdens may be of such a nature that we feel bound to bear them cheerfully or without complaint. They may arise from the nature of our situation; they may be allotments of Providence; they may be the consequences of our errors. ”

“ To make a hole or perforation with, or as with, a boring instrument; to cut a circular hole by the rotary motion of a tool; as, to bore for water or oil (i. e., to sink a well by boring for water or oil) ; to bore with a gimlet; to bore into a tree (as insects) . 2. To be pierced or penetrated by an instrument that cuts as it turns; as, this timber does not bore well, or is hard to bore. 3. To push forward in a certain direction with laborious effort. They take their flight ... boring to the west. ”

“ To grow bright, or more bright; to become less dark or gloomy; to clear up; to become bright or cheerful. And night shall brighten into day. N.Cotton. And, all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere world be past. ”

“ A dipterous insect of the family ( Estrid‘, of many different species, some of which are particularly troublesome to domestic animals, as the horse, ox, and sheep, on which they deposit their eggs. A common species is one of the botflies of the horse (Gastrophilus equi) , the larv‘ of which (bots) are taken into the stomach of the animal, where they live several months and pass through their larval states. In tropical America one species sometimes lives under the human skin, and another in the stomach. ”

“ See Honeybee.
μ There are many genera and species. The common honeybee (Apis mellifica) lives in swarms, each of which has its own queen, its males or drones, and its very numerous workers, which are barren females. Besides the A. mellifica there are other species and varieties of honeybees, as the A. ligustica of Spain and Italy; the A. Indica of India; the A. fasciata of Egypt. The bumblebee is a species of Bombus. The tropical honeybees belong mostly to Melipoma and Trigona.
2. A neighborly gathering of people who engage in united labor for the benefit of an individual or family ”

“ This species of light usually appears in streams, ascending toward the zenith from a dusky line or bank, a few degrees above the northern horizon; when reaching south beyond the zenith, it forms what is called the corona, about a spot in the heavens toward which the dipping needle points. Occasionally the ~ appears as an arch of light across the heavens from east to west. Sometimes it assumes a wavy appearance, and the streams of light are then called merry dancers. They assume a variety of colors, from a pale red or yellow to a deep red or blood color. ”

“ Bulb (?) , n. [L. bulbus, Gr. ?: cf. F. bulbe.] 1. (Bot.) A spheroidal body growing from a plant either above or below the ground (usually below) , which is strictly a bud, consisting of a cluster of partially developed leaves, and producing, as it grows, a stem above, and roots below, as in the onion, tulip, etc. It differs from a corm in not being solid. ”

“ The continuous blowing to which one charge of ore or metal is subjected in a furnace; as, to melt so many tons of iron at a blast. μ The terms hot blast and cold blast are employed to designate whether the current is heated or not heated before entering the furnace. A blast furnace is said to be in blast while it is in operation, and out of blast when not in use. 3. The exhaust steam from and engine, driving a column of air out of a boiler chimney, and thus creating an intense draught through the fire ”

“ The common mouth blowpipe is a tapering tube with a very small orifice at the end to be inserted in the flame. The oxyhydrogen blowpipe, invented by Dr. Hare in 1801, is an instrument in which oxygen and hydrogen, taken from separate reservoirs, in the proportions of two volumes of hydrogen to one of oxygen, are burned in a jet, under pressure. It gives a heat that will consume the diamond, fuse platinum, and dissipate in vapor, or in gaseous forms, most known substances. ”

“ An instrument, utensil, or machine, which, by alternate expansion and contraction, or by rise and fall of the top, draws in air through a valve and expels it through a tube for various purposes, as blowing fires, ventilating mines, or filling the pipes of an organ with wind. ”

“ To cry with a hollow note; to make a hollow sound, as the bittern, and some insects.
At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone.
Tennyson.
2. To make a hollow sound, as of waves or cannon.
Alarm guns booming through the night air.
W. Irving.
3. To rush with violence and noise, as a ship under a press of sail, before a free wind.
She comes booming down before it.
Totten.
4. To have a rapid growth in market value or in popular favor; to go on rushingly.
Boom, n. 1. A hollow roar, as of waves or cannon; also, the hollow cry of the bittern; a booming. ”

“ What is upon us, as a load, we commonly carry with greater reluctance or sense of oppression. Men often find the charge of their own families to be a burden; but if to this be added a load of care for others, the pressure is usually serve and irksome. ”

“ In Daniell's battery, the metals are zinc and copper, the former in dilute sulphuric acid, or a solution of sulphate of zinc, the latter in a saturated solution of sulphate of copper. A modification of this is the common gravity battery, so called from the automatic action of the two fluids, which are separated by their specific gravities. In Grove's battery, platinum is the metal used with zinc; two fluids are used, one of them in a porous cell surrounded by the other. In Bunsen's or the carbon battery, the carbon of gas coke is substituted for the platinum of Grove's. ”

“ 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 plant of the family of grasses, and genus Bambusa, growing in tropical countries.
μ The most useful species is Bambusa arundinacea, which has a woody, hollow, round, straight, jointed stem, and grows to the height of forty feet and upward. The flowers grow in large panicles, from the joints of the stalk, placed three in a parcel, close to their receptacles. Old stalks grow to five or six inches in diameter, and are so hard and durable as to be used for building, and for all sorts of furniture, for water pipes, and for poles to support palanquins. ”

“ Prepossession is a mingled state of feeling and opinion in respect to some person or subject, which has laid hold of and occupied the mind previous to inquiry. The word is commonly used in a good sense, an unfavorable impression of this kind being denominated a prejudice. 1⁄2Strong minds will be strongly bent, and usually labor under a strong bias; but there is no mind so weak and powerless as not to have its inclinations, and none so guarded as to be without its prepossessions. ”

“ The fluid which circulates in the principal vascular system of animals, carrying nourishment to all parts of the body, and bringing away waste products to be excreted. See under Arterial.
μ The blood consists of a liquid, the plasma, containing minute particles, the blood corpuscles. In the invertebrate animals it is usually nearly colorless, and contains only one kind of corpuscles; but in all vertebrates, except Amphioxus, it contains some colorless corpuscles, with many more which are red and give the blood its uniformly red color. ”

“ To vaunt one's self; to brag; to say or tell things which are intended to give others a high opinion of one's self or of things belonging to one's self; as, to boast of one's exploits courage, descent, wealth. ”

“ A carpenter's tool for boring holes larger than those bored by a gimlet. It has a handle placed crosswise by which it is turned with both hands. A pod auger is one with a straight channel or groove, like the half of a bean pod. A screw auger has a twisted blade, by the spiral groove of which the chips are discharge. ”

“ To graft, as a plant with another or into another, by inserting a bud from the one into an opening in the bark of the other, in order to raise, upon the budded stock, fruit different from that which it would naturally bear. ”

“ To back and fill, to manage the sails of a ship so that the wind strikes them alternately in front and behind, in order to keep the ship in the middle of a river or channel while the current or tide carries the vessel against the wind. ”

“ That which exists in any form, whether it be material or spiritual, actual or ideal; living existence, as distinguished from a thing without life; as, a human being; spiritual beings.
What a sweet being is an honest mind ! ”

“ One who builds; one whose occupation is to build, as a carpenter, a shipwright, or a mason.
In the practice of civil architecture, the builder comes between the architect who designs the work and the artisans who execute it. ”

“ A follower of Robert Brown, of England, in the 16th century, who taught that every church is complete and independent in itself when organized, and consists of members meeting in one place, having full power to elect and depose its officers. ”

“ To cause to combine with oxygen or other active agent, with evolution of heat; to consume; to oxidize; as, a man burns a certain amount of carbon at each respiration; to burn iron in oxygen.
To burn, To burn together, as two surfaces of metal (Engin.) , to fuse and unite them by pouring over them a quantity of the same metal in a liquid state. ”

“ Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. Shak. A man's heaviness is refreshed long before he comes to drunkenness, for when he arrives thither he hath but changed his heaviness, and taken a crime to boot. ”

“ A piece of mechanism for retarding or stopping motion by friction, as of a carriage or railway car, by the pressure of rubbers against the wheels, or of clogs or ratchets against the track or roadway, or of a pivoted lever against a wheel or drum in a machine. 10. (Engin.) An apparatus for testing the power of a steam engine, or other motor, by weighing the amount of friction that the motor will overcome; a friction brake. 11. A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses. ”

“ The magistrate bails (but admits to bail is commoner) a man when he liberates him from arrest or imprisonment upon bond given with sureties. The surety bails a person when he procures his release from arrest by giving bond for his appearance.
Blackstone.
(b) To deliver, as goods in trust, for some special object or purpose, upon a contract, expressed or implied, that the trust shall be faithfully executed on the part of the bailee, or person intrusted; as, to bail cloth to a tailor to be made into a garment; to bail goods to a carrier. ”

“ Shak.
2. To tap; to pierce, as a cask, in order to draw the liquor. Hence: To let out; to shed, as blood.
Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast. ”

“ Bloom, n. [AS. bl?ma a mass or lump, Æsenes bl?ma a lump or wedge of iron.] (Metal.) (a) A mass of wrought iron from the Catalan forge or from the puddling furnace, deprived of its dross, and shaped usually in the form of an oblong block by shingling. (b) A large bar of steel formed directly from an ingot by hammering or rolling, being a preliminary shape for further working. ”

“ To exist in a certain manner or relation, Ð whether as a reality or as a product of thought; to exist as the subject of a certain predicate, that is, as having a certain attribute, or as belonging to a certain sort, or as identical with what is specified, Ð a word or words for the predicate being annexed; as, to be happy; to be here; to be large, or strong; to be an animal; to be a hero ”

“ An amphibious rodent, of the genus Castor. μ It has palmated hind feet, and a broad, flat tail. It is remarkable for its ingenuity in constructing its valued for its fur, and for the material called castor, obtained from two small bags in the groin of the animal. The European species is Castor fiber, and the American is generally considered a variety of this, although sometimes called Castor Canadensis. ”