Project Gutenberg

“ Tenure is inseparable from the idea of property in land, according to the theory of the English law; and this idea of tenure pervades, to a considerable extent, the law of real property in the United States, where the title to land is essentially allodial, and almost all lands are held in fee simple, not of a superior, but the whole right and title to the property being vested in the owner. Tenure, in general, then, is the particular manner of holding real estate, as by exclusive title or ownership, by fee simple, by fee tail, by courtesy, in dower, by copyhold, by lease, at will, etc. ”

“ In monarchies, the killing of the sovereign, or an attempt to take his life, is treason. In England, to imagine or compass the death of the king, or of the queen consort, or of the heir apparent to the crown, is high treason, as are many other offenses created by statute. In the United States, treason is confined to the actual levying of war against the United States, or to an adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. ”

“ To change the form, quality, aspect, or effect of; to alter; to metamorphose; to convert; to transform; — often with to or into before the word denoting the effect or product of the change; as, to turn a worm into a winged insect; to turn green to blue; to turn prose into verse; to turn a Whig to a Tory, or a Hindu to a Christian; to turn good to evil, and the like. ”

“ A thing is translucent when it merely admits the passage of light, without enabling us to distinguish the color and outline of objects through it; it is transparent when we can clearly discern objects placed on the other side of it. ”

“ In its wider acceptation, understanding is the entire power of perceiving an conceiving, exclusive of the sensibility: the power of dealing with the impressions of sense, and composing them into wholes, according to a law of unity ”

“ What is transcendental, therefore, transcends empiricism; but is does not transcend all human knowledge, or become transcendent. It simply signifies the a priori or necessary conditions of experience which, though affording the conditions of experience, transcend the sphere of that contingent knowledge which is acquired by experience. ”

“ Some authors make figures the genus, of which trope is a species; others make them different things, defining trope to be a change of sense, and figure to be any ornament, except what becomes so by such change. ”

“ Thrust bearing (Screw Steamers) , a bearing arranged to receive the thrust or endwise pressure of the screw shaft. — Thrust plane (Geol.) , the surface along which dislocation has taken place in the case of a reversed fault.
Syn. — Push; shove; assault; attack. Thrust, Push, Shove. Push and shove usually imply the application of force by a body already in contact with the body to be impelled. Thrust, often, but not always, implies the impulse or application of force by a body which is in motion before it reaches the body to be impelled. ”

“ Teas are classed as green or black, according to their color or appearance, the kinds being distinguished also by various other characteristic differences, as of taste, odor, and the like. The color, flavor, and quality are dependent upon the treatment which the leaves receive after being gathered. The leaves for green tea are heated, or roasted slightly, in shallow pans over a wood fire, almost immediately after being gathered, after which they are rolled with the hands upon a table, to free them from a portion of their moisture, and to twist them, and are then quickly dried. ”

“ Every vegetable is combustible; Every tree is a vegetable; Therefore every tree is combustible, -
combustible, the predicate of the conclusion, is the major term; tree is the minor term; vegetable is the middle term. ”

“ To tantalize, a much stronger term, describes a most distressing form of disappointment, as in the case of Tantalus, the Phrygian king. To tantalize is to visit with the bitterest disappointment — to torment by exciting hopes or expectations which can never be realized. ”

“ Testing.] 1. (Metal.) To refine, as gold or silver, in a test, or cupel; to subject to cupellation.
2. To put to the proof; to prove the truth, genuineness, or quality of by experiment, or by some principle or standard; to try; as, to test the soundness of a principle; to test the validity of an argument.
Experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution.
Washington.
3. (Chem.) To examine or try, as by the use of some reagent; as, to test a solution by litmus paper.

Test (?) , n. [L. testis. Cf. Testament, Testify.] ”

“ A telescope assists the eye chiefly in two ways; first, by enlarging the visual angle under which a distant object is seen, and thus magnifying that object; and, secondly, by collecting, and conveying to the eye, a larger beam of light than would enter the naked organ, thus rendering objects distinct and visible which would otherwise be indistinct and or invisible. Its essential parts are the object glass, or concave mirror, which collects the beam of light, and forms an image of the object, and the eyeglass, which is a microscope, by which the image is magnified. ”

“ Tanning.] [F. tanner, LL. tannare. See Tan, n.] 1. To convert (the skin of an animal) into leather, as by usual process of steeping it in an infusion of oak or some other bark, whereby it is impregnated with tannin, or tannic acid (which exists in several species of bark) , and is thus rendered firm, durable, and in some degree impervious to water.
The essential result in tanning is due to the fact that the tannins form, with gelatins and albuminoids, a series of insoluble compounds which constitute leather. ”

“ Twitching.] [OE. twicchen, fr. (doubtful) AS. twiccian; akin to AS. angeltwicca a worm used for bait, literally, a hook twitcher, LG. twikken to tweak, G. zwicken. Cf. Tweak.] To pull with a sudden jerk; to pluck with a short, quick motion; to snatch; as, to twitch one by the sleeve; to twitch a thing out of another's hand; to twitch off clusters of grapes.
Thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear.
Pope.
Twitch, n. 1. The act of twitching; a pull with a jerk; a short, sudden, quick pull; as, a twitch by the sleeve.
2. A short, spastic contraction of the fibers or muscles ”

“ Transient represents a thing as brief at the best; transitory, as liable at any moment to pass away. Fleeting goes further, and represents it as in the act of taking its flight. Life is transient; its joys are transitory ”

“ The transcending, or going beyond, empiricism, and ascertaining a priori the fundamental principles of human knowledge.
As Schelling and Hegel claim to have discovered the absolute identity of the objective and subjective in human knowledge, or of things and human conceptions of them, the Kantian distinction between transcendent and transcendental ideas can have no place in their philosophy; and hence, with them, transcendentalism claims to have a true knowledge of all things, material and immaterial, human and divine, so far as the mind is capable of knowing them. ”

“ The middle part, bent double, slips into the outer parts, as in a telescope, so that by change of the vibrating length any tone within the compass of the instrument (which may be bass or tenor or alto or even, in rare instances, soprano) is commanded. It is the only member of the family of wind instruments whose scale, both diatonic and chromatic, is complete without the aid of keys or pistons, and which can slide from note to note as smoothly as the human voice or a violin. Softly blown, it has a rich and mellow sound, which becomes harsh and blatant when the tones are forced ”

“ To act the tyrant; to exercise arbitrary power; to rule with unjust and oppressive severity; to exercise power others not permitted by law or required by justice, or with a severity not necessary to the ends of justice and government; as, a prince will often tyrannize over his subjects; masters sometimes tyrannize over their servants or apprentices. ”

“ The process of giving the requisite degree of hardness or softness to a substance, as iron and steel; especially, the process of giving to steel the degree of hardness required for various purposes, consisting usually in first plunging the article, when heated to redness, in cold water or other liquid, to give an excess of hardness, and then reheating it gradually until the hardness is reduced or drawn down to the degree required, as indicated by the color produced on a polished portion, or by the burning of oil. ”

“ In a very general way, and with innumerable varieties of application, to connects transitive verbs with their remoter or indirect object, and adjectives, nouns, and neuter or passive verbs with a following noun which limits their action. Its sphere verges upon that of for, but it contains less the idea of design or appropriation; as, these remarks were addressed to a large audience; let us keep this seat to ourselves; a substance sweet to the taste; an event painful to the mind; duty to God and to our parents; a dislike to spirituous liquor.
Marks and points out each man of us to slaughter. ”

“ Tare, n. [Cf. Prov. E. tare brisk, eager, OE. tarefitch the wild vetch.] 1. A weed that grows among wheat and other grain; — alleged by modern naturalists to be the Lolium temulentum, or darnel.
Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares?
Matt. xiii. 27.
The "darnel" is said to be the tares of Scripture, and is the only deleterious species belonging to the whole order.
Baird.
2. (Bot.) A name of several climbing or diffuse leguminous herbs of the genus Vicia; especially, the V. sativa, sometimes grown for fodder. ”

“ The ordinary telephone consists essentially of a device by which currents of electricity, produced by sounds through the agency of certain mechanical devices and exactly corresponding in duration and intensity to the vibrations of the air which attend them, are transmitted to a distant station, and there, acting on suitable mechanism, reproduce similar sounds by repeating the vibrations. The necessary variations in the electrical currents are usually produced by means of a microphone attached to a thin diaphragm upon which the voice acts, and are intensified by means of an induction coil. ”

“ Point system of type bodies (Type Founding) , a system adopted by the type founders of the United States by which the various sizes of type have been so modified and changed that each size bears an exact proportional relation to every other size. The system is a modification of a French system, and is based on the pica body. This pica body is divided into twelfths, which are termed "points," and every type body consist of a given number of these points. Many of the type founders indicate the new sizes of type by the number of points, and the old names are gradually being done away with. ”

“ Any one of numerous species of batrachians belonging to the genus Bufo and allied genera, especially those of the family Bufonidæ. Toads are generally terrestrial in their habits except during the breeding season, when they seek the water. Most of the species burrow beneath the earth in the daytime and come forth to feed on insects at night. Most toads have a rough, warty skin in which are glands that secrete an acrid fluid. ”

“ A high tide upon one side of the earth is accompanied by a high tide upon the opposite side. Hence, when the sun and moon are in conjunction or opposition, as at new moon and full moon, their action is such as to produce a greater than the usual tide, called the spring tide, as represented in the cut. ”

“ An elementary substance found as an oxide in the mineral cassiterite, and reduced as a soft white crystalline metal, malleable at ordinary temperatures, but brittle when heated. It is not easily oxidized in the air, and is used chiefly to coat iron to protect it from rusting, in the form of tin foil with mercury to form the reflective surface of mirrors, and in solder, bronze, speculum metal, and other alloys. Its compounds are designated as stannous, or stannic. ”

“ The tongue is usually muscular, mobile, and free at one extremity, and in man other mammals is the principal organ of taste, aids in the prehension of food, in swallowing, and in modifying the voice as in speech. ”

“ Syn. — Hypothesis, speculation. — Theory, Hypothesis. A theory is a scheme of the relations subsisting between the parts of a systematic whole; an hypothesis is a tentative conjecture respecting a cause of phenomena. ”

“ Tor"sion (?) , n. [F., fr. LL. torsio, fr. L. torquere, tortum, to twist. See Torture.] 1. The act of turning or twisting, or the state of being twisted; the twisting or wrenching of a body by the exertion of a lateral force tending to turn one end or part of it about a longitudinal axis, while the other is held fast or turned in the opposite direction.
2. (Mech.) That force with which a thread, wire, or rod of any material, returns, or tends to return, to a state of rest after it has been twisted; torsibility.
Angle of torsion (of a curve) (Geom.) ”

“ The fruit, which is called also love apple, is usually of a rounded, flattened form, but often irregular in shape. It is of a bright red or yellow color, and is eaten either cooked or uncooked.
Tomato gall (Zoöl.) , a large gall consisting of a mass of irregular swellings on the stems and leaves of grapevines. They are yellowish green, somewhat tinged with red, and produced by the larva of a small two-winged fly (Lasioptera vitis) . — Tomato sphinx (Zoöl.) , the adult or imago of the tomato worm. It closely resembles the tobacco hawk moth. ”

“ The tail is long, and the bill is curved and without a tooth. — Tree dove (Zoöl.) any one of several species of East Indian and Asiatic doves belonging to Macropygia and allied genera. They have long and broad tails, are chiefly arboreal in their habits, and feed mainly on fruit. — Tree duck (Zoöl.) , any one of several species of ducks belonging to Dendrocygna and allied genera. These ducks have a long and slender neck and a long hind toe. They are arboreal in their habits, and are found in the tropical parts of America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. ”

“ Standard time, the civil time that has been established by law or by general usage over a region or country. In England the standard time is Greenwich mean solar time. In the United States and Canada four kinds of standard time have been adopted by the railroads and accepted by the people, viz., Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific time, corresponding severally to the mean local times of the 75th, 90th, 105th, and 120th meridians west from Greenwich, and being therefore five, six, seven, and eight hours slower than Greenwich time. ”

“ The common European tern (Sterna hirundo) is found also in Asia and America. Among other American species are the arctic tern (S. paradisæa) , the roseate tern (S. Dougalli) , the least tern (S. Antillarum) , the royal tern (S. maxima) , and the sooty tern (S. fuliginosa) .
Hooded tern. See Fairy bird, under Fairy. — Marsh tern, any tern of the genus Hydrochelidon. They frequent marshes and rivers and feed largely upon insects. — River tern, any tern belonging to Seëna or allied genera which frequent rivers. — Sea tern, any tern of the genus Thalasseus. ”

“ Some of the species often attach themselves to the human body. The young are active and have at first but six legs. (b) Any one of several species of dipterous insects having a flattened and usually wingless body, as the bird ticks (see under Bird) and sheep tick (see under Sheep) .
Tick bean, a small bean used for feeding horses and other animals. — Tick trefoil (Bot.) , a name given to many plants of the leguminous genus Desmodium, which have trifoliate leaves, and joined pods roughened with minute hooked hairs by which the joints adhere to clothing and to the fleece of sheep. ”

“ An annuity, with the benefit of survivorship, or a loan raised on life annuities with the benefit of survivorship. Thus, an annuity is shared among a number, on the principle that the share of each, at his death, is enjoyed by the survivors, until at last the whole goes to the last survivor, or to the last two or three, according to the terms on which the money is advanced. ”

“ As sign of the infinitive, to had originally the use of last defined, governing the infinitive as a verbal noun, and connecting it as indirect object with a preceding verb or adjective; thus, ready to go, i.e., ready unto going; good to eat, i.e., good for eating; I do my utmost to lead my life pleasantly. But it has come to be the almost constant prefix to the infinitive, even in situations where it has no prepositional meaning, as where the infinitive is direct object or subject ”

“ Tent caterpillar (Zoöl.) , any one of several species of gregarious caterpillars which construct on trees large silken webs into which they retreat when at rest. Some of the species are very destructive to fruit trees. The most common American species is the larva of a bombycid moth (Clisiocampa Americana) . Called also lackery caterpillar, and webworm. ”

“ To soil, or change the appearance of, especially by an alternation induced by the air, or by dust, or the like; to diminish, dull, or destroy the luster of; to sully; as, to tarnish a metal; to tarnish gilding; to tarnish the purity of color. "Tarnished lace." Fuller. Used also figuratively; as, to tarnish one's honor.
Syn. — To sully; stain; dim.
Tar"nish, v. i. To lose luster; to become dull; as, gilding will tarnish in a foul air.
Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright,
Grow stale and tarnish with our daily sight. ”

“ An edible fish (Lobotes Surinamensis) found in the warmer parts of all the oceans, and common on the southern and middle coasts of the United States. When living it is silvery gray, and becomes brown or blackish when dead. Its dorsal and anal fins are long, and extend back on each side of the tail. It has large silvery scales which are used in the manufacture of fancy work. ”

“ See under Acoustic. — Dial telegraph, a telegraph in which letters of the alphabet and numbers or other symbols are placed upon the border of a circular dial plate at each station, the apparatus being so arranged that the needle or index of the dial at the receiving station accurately copies the movements of that at the sending station. — Electric telegraph, or Electro- magnetic telegraph, a telegraph in which an operator at one station causes words or signs to be made at another by means of a current of electricity, generated by a battery and transmitted over an intervening wire. ”