Word Spy

rank To fail to conform to a prevailing or expected pattern or order: "Architectural experts have criticized the plaza in the past because it breaks rank with the distinctive façades of neighboring Fifth Avenue blocks, whose buildings are flush with the sidewalk” ( Sharon Churcher).

Figuratively, one who is charmed or subdued by beauty or excellence, by the lower passions of his own nature, or by the wiles of others; one whose affections are seized, or who is held by strong ties of love or any other passion.

A senior rating in ships responsible for all the woodwork onboard; in the days of sail, a warrant officer responsible for the hull, masts, spars and boats of a ship, and whose responsibility was to sound the well to see if the ship was making water.

The hundredth part of a dollar, a rupee, or a florin; especially, in the United States, a coin of copper, or copper and nickel, whose value is the hundredth part of a dollar, or about the same as an English half-penny.

An enigma whose solution is a word of two or more syllables, each of which is separately significant in sound, and which, as well as the whole word, must be discovered from a dialogue or description in which it is used, or from dramatic representation.

Designating, or pertaining to, gods or spirits of the underworld; esp., relating to the underworld gods of the Greeks, whose worship is widely considered as more primitive in form than that of the Olympian gods. The characteristics of chthonian worship are propitiatory and magical rites and generalized or euphemistic names of the deities, which are supposed to have been primarily ghosts.

An officer of a court, legislature, municipal corporation, or other body, whose duty generally is to keep the records of the body to which he is attached, and perform the routine business: as, clerk of court; town clerk; clerk to a school-board, etc. See secretary.

In civil law and Scots law, an extinction of an obligation or servitude by the fact that the two persons whose divided position is requisite for the continuance of a debt become one person, for example, when one becomes the heir of the other.

in research, an object or subject used in an experimental procedure, which is treated identically to the primary subject of the experiment, except for the omission of the specific treatment or conditions whose effect is being investigated. If the control is a group of living organisms, as is common in medical research, it is called the control group.

An officer of the peace whose principal duty is to inquire, with the help of a jury, into the cause of any violent, sudden or mysterious death, or death in prison, usually on sight of the body and at the place where the death occurred.

A county or municipal officer formerly charged with the interests of the private property of the crown, but whose main function in modern times is to hold inquest on the bodies of those who may be supposed to have died violent deaths.

No less than eleven species of coyotes have been recognized by Merriam, the name Canis latrans being restricted to the eastern form whose type-locality is Iowa. The species from Lower California is C. peninsuiæ; the Californian form is C. ochropus; and that from Indian Territory is C. frustror.

A person whose mind is ill-balanced or awry; one who lacks mental poise; one who is subject to crotchets, whims, caprices, or absurd or impracticable notions; especially, a person of this sort who takes up some one impracticable notion or project and urges it in season and out of season; a monomaniac.

One who occupies or cultivates a croft; specifically, a small farmer on the western coast and islands of Scotland. The Scotch crofter is a small land-tenant, whose holding is not large enough to be called a farm or to support him by tillage. He is the counterpart of the Irish cottier.

Indistinctly or imperfectly crystalline: used of a mineral whose structure is so fine that its crystalline character is not apparent to the eye, or which is semi-amorphous; also of a rock, or of its base, in which no definite character is discernible in the constituent particles, even with the microscope. See microcrystallinc.

Solid; three-dimensional: said of a unit of volume related to a unit of length of the same name as a cube is related to its edge. Thus, a cubic yard is the volume or solid contents of a cube whose edges are each a yard long. Abbreviated c.

Eccles., one of a body of men, either forming an order of the ministry or serving merely as elected officers of individual churches, whose chief duty is to assist a presbyter, priest, or other clergyman, especially in administering the eucharist and in the care of the poor.

One who deals; one who has to do or has concern with others; specifically, a trader; one whose business is to buy and sell, as a merchant, shopkeeper, or broker: as, a dealer in general merchandise or in stocks; a picture-dealer.

Linguistics Of or relating to a word, the determination of whose referent is dependent on the context in which it is said or written. In the sentence I want him to come here now, the words I, here, him, and now are deictic because the determination of their referents depends on who says that sentence, and where, when, and of whom it is said.

In conchology, dextrorse: applied to univalve shells whose aperture is on the right side when the shell is held in front of the observer with the apex upward and the aperture downward toward him: opposed to sinistral. Most shells are dextral.