CROWN-IMPERIAL. A well known beautiful flower, the root of which is perennial. CROZIER. A shepherd's crook; also a bishop's staff, which is of a similar form, and an emblem of his pastoral office,

CRUCIBLE. A melting pot used by chymists for the melting metal and minerals.

CRUCIFIX. A figure either in statuary or painting, representing our Saviour on the cross.

CRUCIFIXION. The act of nailing or fixing to a cross; the suffering of being crucified.

CRUISE. A voyage or expedition in quest of an enemy's vessels.

CRUOR. Coagulated blood.

CRUSADES. The expeditions undertaken by the princes of Christendom for the conquest of the Holy Land, in the twelfth and three following centuries. On these occasions every soldier bore a crucifix on his breast, as an emblem of spiritual warfare.

CRUSTACEOUS

SHELL FISHES. Fishes covered with shells which are made up of several pieces and joints; such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, &c. in distinction from the testaceous fish, as oysters.

CRYPTOGAMIA. One of the classes of plants in the Linnæan system, comprehending those whose fructification or flower is too concealed or minute to be observed by the naked eye, as the mosses, the algae or seaweeds, the ferns, and the fungi or funguses.

CROWN. A coin, in value five shillings, so called from the figure of the crown which was originally given upon it.

CRYPTS. Subterraneous places where the martyrs were buried, and the primitive Christians performed their devotions; also underground chapels, such as the crypt under St. Paul's church in England.

CRYSTAL, or ROCK CRYSTAL (in Mineralogy.) A transparent stone as clear as CROWN (in Anatomy.) The vertex or glass. It is found in Iceland, Germany, and highest part of the head.

France, and belongs to the quartz or siliceous CROWN (in Architecture.) The upper-genus; also a factitious body cast in the glass

houses, called crystal glass, which is very

CROWN (among Jewellers.) The upper brittle, and burns with little or no flame. work of the rose diamond.

CRYSTAL (in Chymistry.) That part

CROWN-GLASS. The finest sort of win-of a salt which assumes a regular and solid dow glass. form, on the gradual cooling of its solution.

CULMINEÆ. One of the Linnæan naCRYSTALLIZATION. The reducing of tural orders of plants, consisting of the grasses. any salt into a regular form by dissolving it CULPRIT (in Law.) A word of form, apin a menstruum, and allowing it to cool until plied in court to one who is indicted for a it shoots into the bodies called crystals. The criminal offence. It is as much as to say, in forms thus generated are extremely various, French, culpable prit, found or considered very regular, and highly beautiful. Aqueous guilty.'

gas, when frozen, as snow, exhibits beautiful CUMMIN SEED. A long, slender seed, of
specimens of crystalized forms, when examin- a rough texture, unctuous when bruised, of a
ed with the microscope; and freezing water strong smell, and an acrid taste.
is another specimen of crystallization.

CUCKOO-SPITTLE. A white froth or spume very common on the lavender and other plants in the spring, which forms the nidus of a sort of cicada.

CUCURBITACEE. One of Linnæus' natural orders of plants, comprehending those which resemble the gourd, as the cucumber, the melon, &c.

CUIRASS. A metal breast-plate.

corn or grasses.

CUTTLE-FISH. A sea fish furnished with many suckers and holders for securing its CURFEW. Literally, cover feu or fire; a prey. It emits a black fluid, which is used in law introduced from Normandy into England making Indian ink.

CYANOGEN (in Chymistry.) Carbon combined with azote.

CYBELE (in Heathen Mythology.) The daughter of Coelus and Terra, wife of Saturn, and mother of the gods; she is always represented with a turreted head, and accompanied with a lion.

CYCLE. A continual revolution of numbers, as applied to a series of years which go on from first to last, and then return to the same order again.

CYCLOID. A curve generated by the rotation of a circle along a line.

CYCLOPEDIA. See ENCYCLOPEDIA. CYLINDER. A figure conceived to be generated by the rotation of a rectangle about the side. An oblong circular solid.

CYLINDER (in Gunnery.) The whole hollow length of a great gun; the bore.

CYME. Properly, a sprout or shoot; also, a sort of flowering, where the florets do not all rise from the same point.

CYMOSE. One of Linnæus' natural orders, comprehending such plants as are disposed in the form of a cyme.

CYPRESS. A tree very celebrated among the ancients, by whom it was accounted the emblem of death, and used in adorning their sepulchres. The leaves of the cypress are squamose and flat; the fruit is composed of woody tubercles, and the wood of the tree is always green.

D.

D, as a numeral, denotes 500: as an abbre-neral a lèvel and fertile country, well situated viation, stands for Doctor, Domini, &c.; as a for trade. The inhabitants are hospitable, sign, is one of the Dominical or Sunday letters; moral, industrious, and intelligent. Copenhaand in Music, the nominal of the second note gen is the capital, containing about 100,000 in the natural diatonic scale. inhabitants.

DAB. A flat fish, thinner and less than the flounder.

DACE. A river fish of the carp kind. DACTYL. A foot or division in a poetical line, consisting of one long and two short syllables.

DADO. The die, or that part in the middle of the pedestal of a column between its base and cornice.

DEMON. A spirit either good or bad, among the heathens; the devil, or an evil spirit, among Christians.

DEMONIAC. One possessed with a devil. DAGON. An idol of the Philistines, of the human shape upwards, and resembling a fish downwards, with a finny tail.

DAIRY. In rural affairs, a place appointed for the management of milk, and the making of butter, cheese, &c. Dairy houses are to be kept perfectly clean; and lattices are to be preferred to windows; and if their situation can be fixed beside a spring or current of water, it is to be preferred. The proper receptacles for milk, are earthen pans, or wooden vats.

DAPPLE. Light gray with spots; the colour of a horse.

DATA (in Geometry.) Things given or taken for granted, as known or true.

DATE. That part of a writing or letter which expresses the day of the month and

DATE-TREE. A species of palm, native

DAMAGES (in Common Law.) The hurt or hinderance which a man receives in his es- year. tate, particularly those which are to be inquired| of by the jurors, when an action passes for the of Tunis and other parts of Africa, which grows plaintiff. to a great height, and yields a fruit formerly much used in medicine.

DAMASCENE, pronounced DAMSIN. A fruit tree, yielding a small black plum, of an oval shape, so called from Damascus, of which it is a native.

DAMASK. A silk stuff with a raised pattern, consisting of figures and flowers, DAMASK-ROSE. A fine sort of rose, of red colour.

a

DAMPS. Noxious exhalations in mines which sometimes suffocate those that work in them.

DATIVE (in Grammar.) The third of Greek and Latin nouns.

DAUPHIN. The title of the next heir to the crown of France.

DAWN. The commencement of the day, when the twilight appears.

DAY. The time in which the sun enlightens a place, and the period from the sun's passage of the meridian or southing, till the return, which averages 24 hours, but owing to DAMSIN. See DAMASCENE. the obliquity of the meridian to the ecliptic, and DANCE, or DANCING, as at present prac- to the elliptical form of the earth's orbit, contised, may be defined "an agreeable motion of stantly varying. There are three ways of the body, adjusted by art, to the measures or tune reckoning the day. Civil time begins the day of instruments;" but, according to what some from 12 o'clock at night, and noon is its midreckon more agreeable to the true genius of the dle, distinguished before by A. M. and after, art, dancing is "the art of expressing the senti- by P. M. The astronomical day commences ments of the mind, or the passions, by measured at the noon of the civil day, and reckons round steps or bounds that are made in cadence, by re- to the following noon; and the nautical day gulated motions of the body, and by graceful ends at the instant the astronomical day begins, gestures; all performed to the sound of musical so that nautical time in days of the month, is instruments or of the voice." always 24 hours in advance of astronomical

DANE. A native of Denmark, a kingdom time, and the civil day is midway between both. in Europe situate at the entrance to the Baltic DAY (in Law.) The civil day, including sea, comprising the peninsula of Jutland, and day and night; also the day of appearance the islands of Zealand and Funen. It is in ge- of the parties in court.

DAY-FLY. A kind of insect, so called be- biting old wooden furniture, which makes a cause it lives only a day.