Definitions
juger/jugerum/iugerum: (n) An ancient Roman measure of land, containing 28,800 (Roman) square feet, or 240 by 120 (Roman) feet, i.e. about three-fifths of an acre.
palæstra: (n) 1. In ancient Greece and Rome: a place devoted to the public teaching and practice of wrestling and other athletic exercises; a wrestling school, a gymnasium.
2. In extended use: a place of combat, a battlefield; (also) a place to exercise one's intellectual skills, an arena for debate, etc.
3. The action or practice of wrestling; an instance of this; a bout of combat, a tournament. Also figurative.
dilatoriness: (n) The quality of being dilatory; tendency to procrastination or delay.
flamen: (n) 1. In Roman Antiquity: A priest devoted to the service of a particular deity.
2. Applied to other priests, etc.
3. The Latin flamen and archflamen were used by Geoffrey of Monmouth to denote the two grades of alleged sacerdotal functionaries in heathen Britain, whose place was taken on the conversion of the island by bishops and archbishops. Hence pseudo-Historical in English writers.
Lèse majesté/lese-majesty: (n) 1. Any offence against the sovereign authority; treason.
2. Both in French and English, the first member of this word has been treated as a verb-stem, to which a noun may be attached in an objective relation, forming compounds with the general sense of ‘outrage upon the rights or dignity of’ (what is expressed by the noun). Ex. "lese-humanity", "lese-Toryism", "lese-liberty".
comitia curiata/Curiate Assembly: (n) 1. The principal assembly during the first two decades of the Roman Republic; he Curiate Assembly passed laws, elected Consuls (the only elected magistrates at the time), and tried judicial cases.
curiatian law: (n) A law passed by the comitia curiata.
chaudron: (n) A reddish colour, somewhat resembling copper.
curule: (adj) 1. In Roman Antiquity: curule chair: a chair or seat inlaid with ivory and shaped like a camp-stool with curved legs, used by the highest magistrates of Rome.
2. Privileged to sit in a curule chair; as in 'curule magistrate', etc.
3. Pertaining to any high civic dignity or office, as that of a magistrate or mayor.
decemvir: (n) 1. In Roman Antiquity: A body of ten men acting as a commission, council, college, or ruling authority; especially the two bodies of magistrates appointed in 451 and 450 B.C. to draw up a code of laws (the laws of the Twelve Tables) who were, during the time, entrusted with the supreme government of Rome.
2. A council or ruling body of ten, as the Council of Ten of the Venetian Republic.
3. A member of such a body.
historiette: (n) A short history or story; an anecdote.
stade: (n) 1. An ancient Greek and Roman measure of length, varying according to time and place, but most commonly equal to 600 Greek or Roman feet, or one-eighth of a Roman mile. (In the English Bible rendered by furlong.)
2. A stadium or course for foot-racing.
3. A stage in a journey; A stage in the progress of a disease.
4. In Geology: a climatic episode within a glaciation during which a secondary advance of glaciers took place.
douceur: (n) 1. Formerly, sweetness and pleasantness of manner; amiability, gentleness. Revived in sense ‘something pleasant or agreeable’. So douceur de (la) vie or de vivre: the pleasure or the sweet things of life.
2. An agreeable or pleasant speech; a complimentary phrase.
3. A conciliatory present or gift; a gratuity or ‘tip’; a bribe.
4. Specifically, a U.K. tax benefit given as an inducement to a person to sell something of historical value (especially a work of art) by private treaty to a public collection in the U.K., rather than on the open market.
polypus: (n) In Medicine: 1. Originally: a fleshy growth within the nasal passages. In later use: a mass arising from a epithelial (especially mucosal) surface, having either a stalk or a broad base, and of inflammatory, hyperplastic, hamartomatous, or neoplastic origin.
2. A large, usually rounded thrombus in the heart (originally considered to be a cause of disease, later recognized to be a post-mortem phenomenon).
In Zoology: 3. A cephalopod having eight or ten tentacles, as an octopus, squid, or cuttlefish.
4. Any of various aquatic sessile invertebrates of relatively simple structure which have a mouth surrounded by tentacles and are either solitary or colonial in organization, as a hydrozoan, anthozoan, or (formerly) a bryozoan; especially each of the individual organisms which make up a colonial cnidarian, usually sessile and having a thin mesogloea; a zooid. Formerly also: any of a disparate group of aquatic invertebrates, mostly of branched or radial form, classified as ‘Polypi’ by various 19th-cent. writers, including stalked echinoderms, tunicates, sponges, and certain ciliates and rotifers.
hyperplastic: (adj) of or relating to a form of hypertrophy consisting in abnormal multiplication of the cellular elements of a part or organ; excessive cell-formation.
hamartomatous: (adj) of or relating to a tumour-like mass resulting from the faulty growth or development of normal cells or tissue.
neoplastic: (adj) Of, relating to, or of the nature of a neoplasm: a new and abnormal growth of tissue in the body, specifically one resulting from uncontrolled proliferation of cells; a benign or malignant tumour.
hydrozoan: (adj) Of or relating to the Hydrozoa: a class of Cœlenterate animals, chiefly marine, simple or more frequently compound, found in all parts of the world, and differing widely in form and complexity of structure; the individual zooid consists of a soft gelatinous sac composed of an outer and inner layer of cells (ectoderm and endoderm), and usually with tentacles surrounding the mouth. Familiar examples are the fresh-water Hydra, and the various organisms called Acalephs, Medusæ, or Jelly-fishes.
Cœlenterate: (adj) Of or belonging to the Cœlenterata: 1. One of the primary groups into which Leuckart, followed by others, divided the Animal Kingdom. As constituted by him, the group contains animals possessing a digestive cavity with which a peripheral system of canals frequently communicates, with prehensile organs disposed in a circle round the mouth, and all, or nearly all, provided with thread-cells or nematocysts: divided into Ctenophora, Actinozoa (corals, sea-anemones) and Hydrozoa.
2. In later classifications the lower of the two subdivisions of the Metazoa, distinguished from the Cœlomata by having an intestinal canal but no body-cavity or cœlome. In addition to the preceding, the Porifera or Sponges are placed in it.
zooid: (n) Something that resembles an animal (but is not one in the strict or full sense): in early use applied somewhat widely, including, e.g., a free-moving animal or vegetable cell, as a spermatozoon or antherozooid; but chiefly restricted to an animal arising from another by asexual reproduction, i.e. budding (gemmation) or division (fission); specifically (and most usually) Each of the distinct beings or ‘persons’ which make up a compound or ‘colonial’ animal organism, and often have different forms and functions, thus more or less corresponding to the various organs in the higher animals.
antherozooid: (n) In Botany: One of the minute moving bodies in the antheridia of cryptogams, analogous to the spermatozoa of animals.
antheridium: (n) In Botany: Oblong or globular ‘sperm’ cells found in Cryptogams, answering to the anthers of flowering plants.
cryptogam: (n) In Botany: A plant of the class Cryptogamia: A large division of the vegetable kingdom, being the last class in the Linnæan Sexual system, and comprising those plants which have no stamens or pistils, and therefore no proper flowers; including Ferns, Mosses, Algæ, Lichens, and Fungi.
anthozoan: (adj) Of or pertaining to the class Anthozoa of marine cnidarians, which includes sea anemones, corals, and sea-pens.
bryozoan: (adj) Of or pertaining to the Bryozoa: the lowest class of molluscs, consisting of compound or ‘colonial’ animals formed by gemmation, each individual having a distinct alimentary canal. Also called Polyzoa.
gemmation: In Botany: 1. The action of budding.
2. The manner in which the young leaf is enfolded in the bud.
3. The time when leaf-buds are put forth.
4. The arrangement of buds on the stalk.
In Zoology: 5. The process of reproduction by gemmæ or buds; the formation of a new individual by the protrusion and complete or partial separation of a part of the parent; budding.
cnidarian: (n) An animal of the invertebrate phylum Cnidaria: a phylum of aquatic invertebrates typically having a simple tube-shaped or cup-shaped body, which includes sea anemones, hydras, jellyfish, and corals; a coelenterate (as now understood).
mesogloea: (n) 1. In Botany: Usually in form Mesogloia. A genus of brown algae (family Chordariaceae); an alga of this genus.
2. In Zoology: In coelenterates and ctenophores: a layer between the endoderm and the ectoderm, lacking organized cellular structure and often gelatinous in consistency. Also: the mesenchyme of a sponge.
ctenophore: (n) 1. each of the eight meridionally arranged bands or rows of plates, bearing fringes like the teeth of a comb, which constitute the locomotive organs of the Ctenophora;
2. a member of the Ctenophora, a Ctenophoran.
mesenchyme: (n) A loosely organized tissue, chiefly mesodermal in origin (e.g. the parenchyma of cestodes and trematodes); especially (in vertebrates) the embryonic tissue which develops into connective and skeletal tissues, including blood, lymph, and muscles.
mesodermal: (adj) Of or relating to the mesoderm: In Botany: 1. The middle layer of tissue in the outer wall of the spore capsule of a moss.
2. The middle layer of the bark of a tree.
In Embryology: 3. The middle of the three germinal layers of the embryo (in all metazoans except sponges and coelenterates), from which the body's connective tissues are derived.
parenchyma: (n) 1. The specialized tissue of an organ, as distinguished from its connective tissue or stroma; an instance of this.
2. Cellular tissue composing the main bulk of the body in various acoelomate invertebrates, esp. flatworms. Also: the cytoplasm of a single-celled organism
3. In Botany: The fundamental or ground tissue of plants, typically consisting of living, thin-walled, often polyhedral cells, as in the pulp of fruits, the softer parts of leaves, the pith of stems, etc.; an instance of this.
cestode: (n) A parasitic worm of the class Cestoda, having a flat, ribbon-like body; a tapeworm.
trematode: (n) Belonging to the class or order Trematoda or Trematoidea of parasitic worms, found in the bodies of various animals, having a flattish or cylindrical form, with skin often perforated by pores, and usually furnished with adhesive suckers; the flukes are typical examples.
tunicate: (n) One of a class of marine animals, formerly regarded as molluscs, but now classified as a degenerate branch of Chordata, comprising the ascidians and allied forms, characterized by a pouch-like body enclosed in a tough leathery integument, with a single or double aperture through which the water enters and leaves the pharynx.
ascidian: (n) A member of the Ascidia (or Ascidiæ), a group of animals belonging to the tunicate Mollusca, considered by evolutionists to constitute a link in the development of the Vertebrata.
rotifer: (n) An animalcule belonging to the class Rotifera: a class of minute (usually microscopic) animalcules, having rotatory organs which are used in swimming.
animalcule: (n) 1. A small or tiny animal; formerly applied to small vertebrates, such as mice, and all invertebrates.
2. An animal so small as to be visible only with the aid of the microscope; applied chiefly to the Rotifera and Infusoria.
sinople: (n) 1. [also sinoper] A colour of some shade of red; a kind of red earth used as a pigment (originally one brought to Greece from Sinope in Paphlagonia); Cinnabar.
2. The colour green; specifically in Heraldry, vert.
3. In Mining: A variety of ferruginous quartz.
lusk: (n) 1. An idle or lazy fellow; a sluggard.
(adj) 2. Lazy, sluggish.
(v) 3. To lie hid; to lie idly or at ease, to indulge laziness; to skulk.
bloater: (n) a smoked half-dried herring, cured by the process of bloating; a bloated herring. Also a term of contempt for a human being.
bloat: (v) To cure (herrings) by a process which leaves them soft and only half-dried. This is now done by leaving them in dry salt on a floor for 24 hours, washing in fresh water, spitting, and smoking them over an oak fire for a period varying from 24 hours to 3 or 4 days, according to the time they are to be kept before being eaten. (Earlier authorities speak of their being steeped for a time in brine before smoking; which has to be remembered in discussing the original meaning of bloat.)
palæstra: (n) 1. In ancient Greece and Rome: a place devoted to the public teaching and practice of wrestling and other athletic exercises; a wrestling school, a gymnasium.
2. In extended use: a place of combat, a battlefield; (also) a place to exercise one's intellectual skills, an arena for debate, etc.
3. The action or practice of wrestling; an instance of this; a bout of combat, a tournament. Also figurative.
dilatoriness: (n) The quality of being dilatory; tendency to procrastination or delay.
flamen: (n) 1. In Roman Antiquity: A priest devoted to the service of a particular deity.
2. Applied to other priests, etc.
3. The Latin flamen and archflamen were used by Geoffrey of Monmouth to denote the two grades of alleged sacerdotal functionaries in heathen Britain, whose place was taken on the conversion of the island by bishops and archbishops. Hence pseudo-Historical in English writers.
Lèse majesté/lese-majesty: (n) 1. Any offence against the sovereign authority; treason.
2. Both in French and English, the first member of this word has been treated as a verb-stem, to which a noun may be attached in an objective relation, forming compounds with the general sense of ‘outrage upon the rights or dignity of’ (what is expressed by the noun). Ex. "lese-humanity", "lese-Toryism", "lese-liberty".
comitia curiata/Curiate Assembly: (n) 1. The principal assembly during the first two decades of the Roman Republic; he Curiate Assembly passed laws, elected Consuls (the only elected magistrates at the time), and tried judicial cases.
curiatian law: (n) A law passed by the comitia curiata.
chaudron: (n) A reddish colour, somewhat resembling copper.
curule: (adj) 1. In Roman Antiquity: curule chair: a chair or seat inlaid with ivory and shaped like a camp-stool with curved legs, used by the highest magistrates of Rome.
2. Privileged to sit in a curule chair; as in 'curule magistrate', etc.
3. Pertaining to any high civic dignity or office, as that of a magistrate or mayor.
decemvir: (n) 1. In Roman Antiquity: A body of ten men acting as a commission, council, college, or ruling authority; especially the two bodies of magistrates appointed in 451 and 450 B.C. to draw up a code of laws (the laws of the Twelve Tables) who were, during the time, entrusted with the supreme government of Rome.
2. A council or ruling body of ten, as the Council of Ten of the Venetian Republic.
3. A member of such a body.
historiette: (n) A short history or story; an anecdote.
stade: (n) 1. An ancient Greek and Roman measure of length, varying according to time and place, but most commonly equal to 600 Greek or Roman feet, or one-eighth of a Roman mile. (In the English Bible rendered by furlong.)
2. A stadium or course for foot-racing.
3. A stage in a journey; A stage in the progress of a disease.
4. In Geology: a climatic episode within a glaciation during which a secondary advance of glaciers took place.
douceur: (n) 1. Formerly, sweetness and pleasantness of manner; amiability, gentleness. Revived in sense ‘something pleasant or agreeable’. So douceur de (la) vie or de vivre: the pleasure or the sweet things of life.
2. An agreeable or pleasant speech; a complimentary phrase.
3. A conciliatory present or gift; a gratuity or ‘tip’; a bribe.
4. Specifically, a U.K. tax benefit given as an inducement to a person to sell something of historical value (especially a work of art) by private treaty to a public collection in the U.K., rather than on the open market.
polypus: (n) In Medicine: 1. Originally: a fleshy growth within the nasal passages. In later use: a mass arising from a epithelial (especially mucosal) surface, having either a stalk or a broad base, and of inflammatory, hyperplastic, hamartomatous, or neoplastic origin.
2. A large, usually rounded thrombus in the heart (originally considered to be a cause of disease, later recognized to be a post-mortem phenomenon).
In Zoology: 3. A cephalopod having eight or ten tentacles, as an octopus, squid, or cuttlefish.
4. Any of various aquatic sessile invertebrates of relatively simple structure which have a mouth surrounded by tentacles and are either solitary or colonial in organization, as a hydrozoan, anthozoan, or (formerly) a bryozoan; especially each of the individual organisms which make up a colonial cnidarian, usually sessile and having a thin mesogloea; a zooid. Formerly also: any of a disparate group of aquatic invertebrates, mostly of branched or radial form, classified as ‘Polypi’ by various 19th-cent. writers, including stalked echinoderms, tunicates, sponges, and certain ciliates and rotifers.
hyperplastic: (adj) of or relating to a form of hypertrophy consisting in abnormal multiplication of the cellular elements of a part or organ; excessive cell-formation.
hamartomatous: (adj) of or relating to a tumour-like mass resulting from the faulty growth or development of normal cells or tissue.
neoplastic: (adj) Of, relating to, or of the nature of a neoplasm: a new and abnormal growth of tissue in the body, specifically one resulting from uncontrolled proliferation of cells; a benign or malignant tumour.
hydrozoan: (adj) Of or relating to the Hydrozoa: a class of Cœlenterate animals, chiefly marine, simple or more frequently compound, found in all parts of the world, and differing widely in form and complexity of structure; the individual zooid consists of a soft gelatinous sac composed of an outer and inner layer of cells (ectoderm and endoderm), and usually with tentacles surrounding the mouth. Familiar examples are the fresh-water Hydra, and the various organisms called Acalephs, Medusæ, or Jelly-fishes.
Cœlenterate: (adj) Of or belonging to the Cœlenterata: 1. One of the primary groups into which Leuckart, followed by others, divided the Animal Kingdom. As constituted by him, the group contains animals possessing a digestive cavity with which a peripheral system of canals frequently communicates, with prehensile organs disposed in a circle round the mouth, and all, or nearly all, provided with thread-cells or nematocysts: divided into Ctenophora, Actinozoa (corals, sea-anemones) and Hydrozoa.
2. In later classifications the lower of the two subdivisions of the Metazoa, distinguished from the Cœlomata by having an intestinal canal but no body-cavity or cœlome. In addition to the preceding, the Porifera or Sponges are placed in it.
zooid: (n) Something that resembles an animal (but is not one in the strict or full sense): in early use applied somewhat widely, including, e.g., a free-moving animal or vegetable cell, as a spermatozoon or antherozooid; but chiefly restricted to an animal arising from another by asexual reproduction, i.e. budding (gemmation) or division (fission); specifically (and most usually) Each of the distinct beings or ‘persons’ which make up a compound or ‘colonial’ animal organism, and often have different forms and functions, thus more or less corresponding to the various organs in the higher animals.
antherozooid: (n) In Botany: One of the minute moving bodies in the antheridia of cryptogams, analogous to the spermatozoa of animals.
antheridium: (n) In Botany: Oblong or globular ‘sperm’ cells found in Cryptogams, answering to the anthers of flowering plants.
cryptogam: (n) In Botany: A plant of the class Cryptogamia: A large division of the vegetable kingdom, being the last class in the Linnæan Sexual system, and comprising those plants which have no stamens or pistils, and therefore no proper flowers; including Ferns, Mosses, Algæ, Lichens, and Fungi.
anthozoan: (adj) Of or pertaining to the class Anthozoa of marine cnidarians, which includes sea anemones, corals, and sea-pens.
bryozoan: (adj) Of or pertaining to the Bryozoa: the lowest class of molluscs, consisting of compound or ‘colonial’ animals formed by gemmation, each individual having a distinct alimentary canal. Also called Polyzoa.
gemmation: In Botany: 1. The action of budding.
2. The manner in which the young leaf is enfolded in the bud.
3. The time when leaf-buds are put forth.
4. The arrangement of buds on the stalk.
In Zoology: 5. The process of reproduction by gemmæ or buds; the formation of a new individual by the protrusion and complete or partial separation of a part of the parent; budding.
cnidarian: (n) An animal of the invertebrate phylum Cnidaria: a phylum of aquatic invertebrates typically having a simple tube-shaped or cup-shaped body, which includes sea anemones, hydras, jellyfish, and corals; a coelenterate (as now understood).
mesogloea: (n) 1. In Botany: Usually in form Mesogloia. A genus of brown algae (family Chordariaceae); an alga of this genus.
2. In Zoology: In coelenterates and ctenophores: a layer between the endoderm and the ectoderm, lacking organized cellular structure and often gelatinous in consistency. Also: the mesenchyme of a sponge.
ctenophore: (n) 1. each of the eight meridionally arranged bands or rows of plates, bearing fringes like the teeth of a comb, which constitute the locomotive organs of the Ctenophora;
2. a member of the Ctenophora, a Ctenophoran.
mesenchyme: (n) A loosely organized tissue, chiefly mesodermal in origin (e.g. the parenchyma of cestodes and trematodes); especially (in vertebrates) the embryonic tissue which develops into connective and skeletal tissues, including blood, lymph, and muscles.
mesodermal: (adj) Of or relating to the mesoderm: In Botany: 1. The middle layer of tissue in the outer wall of the spore capsule of a moss.
2. The middle layer of the bark of a tree.
In Embryology: 3. The middle of the three germinal layers of the embryo (in all metazoans except sponges and coelenterates), from which the body's connective tissues are derived.
parenchyma: (n) 1. The specialized tissue of an organ, as distinguished from its connective tissue or stroma; an instance of this.
2. Cellular tissue composing the main bulk of the body in various acoelomate invertebrates, esp. flatworms. Also: the cytoplasm of a single-celled organism
3. In Botany: The fundamental or ground tissue of plants, typically consisting of living, thin-walled, often polyhedral cells, as in the pulp of fruits, the softer parts of leaves, the pith of stems, etc.; an instance of this.
cestode: (n) A parasitic worm of the class Cestoda, having a flat, ribbon-like body; a tapeworm.
trematode: (n) Belonging to the class or order Trematoda or Trematoidea of parasitic worms, found in the bodies of various animals, having a flattish or cylindrical form, with skin often perforated by pores, and usually furnished with adhesive suckers; the flukes are typical examples.
tunicate: (n) One of a class of marine animals, formerly regarded as molluscs, but now classified as a degenerate branch of Chordata, comprising the ascidians and allied forms, characterized by a pouch-like body enclosed in a tough leathery integument, with a single or double aperture through which the water enters and leaves the pharynx.
ascidian: (n) A member of the Ascidia (or Ascidiæ), a group of animals belonging to the tunicate Mollusca, considered by evolutionists to constitute a link in the development of the Vertebrata.
rotifer: (n) An animalcule belonging to the class Rotifera: a class of minute (usually microscopic) animalcules, having rotatory organs which are used in swimming.
animalcule: (n) 1. A small or tiny animal; formerly applied to small vertebrates, such as mice, and all invertebrates.
2. An animal so small as to be visible only with the aid of the microscope; applied chiefly to the Rotifera and Infusoria.
sinople: (n) 1. [also sinoper] A colour of some shade of red; a kind of red earth used as a pigment (originally one brought to Greece from Sinope in Paphlagonia); Cinnabar.
2. The colour green; specifically in Heraldry, vert.
3. In Mining: A variety of ferruginous quartz.
lusk: (n) 1. An idle or lazy fellow; a sluggard.
(adj) 2. Lazy, sluggish.
(v) 3. To lie hid; to lie idly or at ease, to indulge laziness; to skulk.
bloater: (n) a smoked half-dried herring, cured by the process of bloating; a bloated herring. Also a term of contempt for a human being.
bloat: (v) To cure (herrings) by a process which leaves them soft and only half-dried. This is now done by leaving them in dry salt on a floor for 24 hours, washing in fresh water, spitting, and smoking them over an oak fire for a period varying from 24 hours to 3 or 4 days, according to the time they are to be kept before being eaten. (Earlier authorities speak of their being steeped for a time in brine before smoking; which has to be remembered in discussing the original meaning of bloat.)