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that the wood shrinks most in summer, and swells most in winter, but is most liable to change in the spring and fall; that this motion happens chiefly in the day-time, there being scarcely any variation in the night; and that there is a motion even in dry weather, the wood swelling in the morning, and shrinking in the afternoon also that the wood by night as well as by day, usually shrinks when the wind is in the north, north-east, and east, both in summer and winter; that by constant observation of the motion and rest of the wood, with the help of a thermometer, the direction of the wind may be told nearly without a weather-cock.

Drs. Hales and Desaguliers contrived another form of sponge hygrometer. They made an horizontal axis, having a small part of its length cylindrical, and the remainder tapering conically with a spiral thread cut in it, after the manner of the fuzee of a watch. See fig. 5. The sponge is suspended by a fine silk thread to the cylindrical part of the axis, upon which it winds. This is balanced by a small weight, W, suspended also by a thread, which winds upon the spiral fuzee. When the sponge grows heavier, in moist weather, it descends and turns the axis, and so draws up the weight; which, coming to a thicker part of the axis, becomes a balance to the sponge, and its motion is shown by an attached scale; and vice versa, when the air becomes drier. Salt of tartar, or any other salt, or pot ashes, may be put into the scale of a balance, and used instead of the sponge.

De Luc's contrivances for an hygrometer are very ingenious. Finding that even ivory swells with moisture, and contracts with dryness, he made a small and very thin hollow cylinder of ivory, open only at the upper end, into which is fitted the under or open end of a very fine long glass tube, like that of a thermometer. Into these is introduced some quicksilver, filling the ivory cylinder, and a small part of the length up the glass tube. The consequence is this: When moisture swells the ivory cylinder, its bore or capacity grows larger, and consequently the mercury sinks in the fine glass tube; and, vice versa, when the air is drier, the ivory contracts, and forces the mercury higher up the tube of glass. An instrument thus constructed is in fact also a thermometer, and must necessarily be affected by the vicissitudes of heat and cold, as well as by those of dryness and moisture. It is a known fact, that a hair will stretch when moistened, and contract when dried ; and M. de Saussure found, by repeated experiments, that the difference between the greatest extension and contraction, when the hair is properly prepared, and has a weight of about three grains suspended by it, is nearly one-fortieth of its whole length, or one inch in forty. This circumstance suggested the idea of a new hygrometer. To render these small variations of the length of the hair perceptible, an apparatus was contrived, in which one of the extremities of the hair is fixed, and the other, bearing the counterpoise above-mentioned, surrounds the circumference of a cylinder, which turns upon an axis to which a hand is adapted, marking upon a dial, in large divisions, the almost insensible motion of this axis. About

twelve inches high is recommended as the most convenient and useful: and, to render them portable, a contrivance is added, by which the hand and the counterpoise can be occasionally fixed. But M. de Luc, in his Idées sur la Meteorologie, vol. i., opposed M. de Saussure's plan, on the ground that all hairs, if immersed in water, first lengthen and then shorten. He was answered by Saussure, who, at the same time, published a detailed account of his instru

ment.

In plate HYGROMETER, fig. 6, there is a representation of his whole original instrument, with the hair and other appendages complete. The lower extremity of the hair, ab, is held by the screw pincers b, more distinctly represented at B; and, by a screw at the end of these, the hair is fastened to the bottom plate C. The upper extremity, a, of the hair is held by the under chaps of the double pincers a. These pincers below hold the hair, and above fasten a very fine narrow slip of silver, carefully annealed, which rolls round the arbor or cylinder d, a separate figure of which is shown, DF, fig. 7. This arbor which carries the needle or index E in the separate figure, is cut in the shape of a screw; and the intervals of the threads of this screw have their bases flat, and are cut square so as to receive the slip of silver that is fastened to the pincers a, and joined in this manner with the hair. M. de Sausure observes that hair alone, fixed immediately to the arbor, would not do; for it curled upon it, and acquired a stiffness that the counterpoise was not able to surmount. The arbor was cut in a screw form, in order that the slip of silver in winding upon it should not increase the diameter of the arbor, nor ever take a situation too oblique and variable. The slip is fixed to the arbor by a small pin F. The other extremity of the arbor, D, is shaped like a pulley, flat at the bottom, so as to receive a fine supple silken string, to which is suspended the counterpoise g in the large figure, and G in the side one. This counterpoise is applied to distend the hair; and acts in a contrary direction to that of the hair, and the moveable pincers to which the hair is fixed. If, then, the hair should be loaded with the weight of four grains, the counterpoise must weigh four grains more than the pincers. The arbor at one end passes through the centre of the dial, and turns therein, in a very fine hole, on a pivot made very cylindrical, and well polished: at the other end is also a similar pivot, which turns in a hole made in the end of the arm of the cock. M. de Saussure had hygrometers made with hairs fourteen inches long; but he found one foot sufficient. The arbor is three-fourths of a line in diameter at the base between the threads of the screw, or the part on which the slip winds. The variations, when a hair properly prepared is applied to it, are more than an entire circumference, the index describing about 400° in moving from extreme dryness to extreme humidity.

M. Saussure has even made smaller instruments to be carried in the pocket, and to make experiments with under small receivers; they were only seven inches high by two inches broad; which, notwithstanding their variations, were

very sensible. In the preparation of the hair, it is necessary to free it of its natural unctuosity, which in a great measure deprives it of its hygrometrical sensibility. A number of hairs are boiled in a lie of vegetable alkali; and among these are to be chosen for use such as are most transparent, bright, and soft: particular precautions are necessary for preventing the straining of the hair, which renders it unfit for the intended purpose. The two fixed points of the hygrometer are the extremes both of moisture and dryness. The former is obtained by exposing it to air completely saturated with water, by placing it in a glass receiver standing in water, the sides of which are kept continually moistened. The point on the dial, at which the hand after a certain interval remains stationary, is marked 100. The point of extreme dryness, not absolute dryness, for that does not exist, but the greatest degree of it that can be obtained, is produced by introducing repeatedly into the same receiver containing the instrument, and standing now upon quicksilver, certain quantities of deliquescent alkaline salts, which absorb the moisture of the air. This hygrometer is considered by M. Saussure as possessed of every property requisite for such an instrument: as, it points out the smallest variation of moisture in the air: its indications are quick it is always consistent: several of them agree it is affected only by aqueous vapors and its variations are in proportion to

:

those of the air.

The best hygrometer upon the third principle, viz, that of the alteration of the weight of substances, by attracting the moisture of the air, and for ascertaining the quantity as well as the degree of moisture in the variation of the hygrometer, is that of Mr. Coventry of London. The account he gives of it is as follows :— Take two sheets of fine tissue paper, such as is used by hatters; dry them carefully at about two feet distance from a tolerably good fire, till after repeatedly weighing them in a good pair of scales no moisture remains. When the sheets are in this perfectly dry state, reduce them to exactly fifty grains; the hygrometer is then fit for use. The sheets must be kept free from dust, and exposed a few minutes in the open air; after which may be always known, by weighing them, the exact quantity of moisture they have imbibed. For many years, adds he, the hygrometer has engrossed a considerable share of my attention; and every advantage proposed by others, either as it respected the substances of which the instrument was composed, or the manner in which its operations were to be discerned, has been impartially examined. But I have never seen an hygrometer so simple in itself, or that would act with such certainty or so equally alike, as the one I have now described. The materials of which it is composed, being thin, are easily deprived wholly of their moisture; which is a circumstance essentially necessary in fixing a datum from which to reckon, and which, I think, cannot be said of any substance hitherto employed in the construction of hygrometers: with equal facility they imbibe or impart the humidity of the atmosphere, and show with the greatest exactness when the least alteration takes place. For

easier weighing the paper, take a piece of round tin or brass the size of a crown piece, through the centre of which drill a hole, and also three others round it at equal distances: then cut about 100 papers; and, after putting them under the tin or brass, drive through each hole a strong pin into a board, in order to round them to the shape of the plate: the papers must then be separated and exposed to the air a few hours with that already weighed, and so many of them taken as are equal to the weight already specified. This done, thread them together through these holes made by the pins, putting between every paper on each thread a small bead, to prevent the papers from touching each other, and also that the air may be more readily admitted. The top of the hygrometer is covered with a card cut to the same size; and which, by its stiffness, supports all the papers, and keeps them in proper shape. Before the papers are threaded, the beads, silk, card, and a thin piece of brass about the size of a sixpence, which must be placed at the bottom, and through which the centre string passes, must be weighed with the greatest exactness, to bring them to a certain weight, suppose fifty grains; now the paper in its driest state, being of equal weight, they will weigh together 100 grains; consequently, what they weigh more at any time is moisture. To obviate the difficulty of trying experiments with weights and scales, Mr. Coventry contrived a machine or scale by which to determine at one view the humidity or dryness of the atmosphere. This, with its case, is represented by fig. 8. The front and back of the case are glass; the sides fine gauze, which excludes the dust and admits the air; the case is about ten inches high, eight inches broad, and four inches deep. A, a brass bracket in front, behind which, at about three inches and a half distance, is another; these support the axis of the index E, also of the beam D, and another which supports the stem R, to which the ivory scale of div.s.ons C is fixed. G, a brass scale suspended in the usual manner to the end of a beam D, and weighing exactly 100 grams. This scale is an exact counterpoise to the papers I, and the different apparatus. The manner of suspension is as follows:-The axis g, of the beam, which is made of brass, instead of hanging on pivots as in common scales, tums with two steel edges kk, fixed in the extremities of the brass axis; these edges are shaped like the edge of a knife, and act on two steel concave edges 1, 1, in order to render the friction as small as possible. Dis a fine scale beam fixed at right angles with the axis g. E, the steel index fixed to the under side of the same axis. F, a brass sliding weight: h is the axis that holds the stem B to which the scale of divisions C is fixed. A, A, the brass brackets which support the whole by four screws, two of which are seen at i, i, that screw the brackets to the top of the case. The axis of the scale of divisions is hung on pivots, one of which is seen at m, that, should the case not stand level, the stem B may always be in a perpendicular situation. The hygrometer, before use, should be thus adjusted :-To the end of the beam where the hygrometer is suspended, hang a weight of 100 grains, which is equal to the weight of

the scale; then move the sliding-weight F up or down the index E, till one grain will cause the index to traverse neither more nor less than the whole scale of divisions; then add half a grain to the scale, in order to bring the index to 0; and the instrument, after taking off the 100 grain weight and hanging on the papers, is fit for use; then put grain weights in the scale till the index is brought within compass of the scale of divisions. Example: H is three grains on the brass scale, and the index points at 10; consequently there are three grains and hs of a grain of moisture in the papers. If four grain weights are kept, viz. 1, 2, 4, and 5, they will make any number from one to nine, which are as many as will be wanted. Sometimes the index will continue traversing within the scale of divisions for many days without shifting the weights; but, if otherwise, they must be changed as occasion may require. One great advantage (says Mr. Coventry) of this hygrometer, above all others that have attracted my notice, is that it acts from a certain datum, namely, the dry extreme; from which all the variations towards moist are calculated with certainty: and, if constructed with that precision represented by the drawing, it will afford pleasure to the curious in observing the almost perpetual alteration of the atmosphere, even in the most settled weather. In winter it will be constantly traversing from about 8 A. M. till 4 or 5 P. M. towards dry; and in summer, from about 4 A. M. till 6 or 7 P. M. when the weather is hot and gloomy, the hygrometer discovers a very great change towards moisture; and, when clear and frosty, that it contains a much greater quantity of moisture than is generally imagined'

HYGROMETRY, the art or science of measuring the moisture of the atmosphere. See HYGROMETER.

HY'GROSCOPE, n. s. Fr. hygroscope; Gr. Vypoc and GKOTέw. An instrument to show the moisture and dryness of the air, and to measure and estimate the quantity of either extreme.— Quincy.

Moisture in the air is discovered by hygroscopes. Arbuthnot.

HYGROSCOPE is commonly used in the same sense with hygrometer, but Wolfius makes a difference from the etymology of the words. The hygroscope (he says) only shows the changes of humidity or dryness in the air, but the hygrome

ter measures them.

HYLA, in ancient geography, a river of Mysia Minor, famous for the death of Hylas. It runs by Prusa, whence it seems to be the same with the Ryndacus, which runs north-west into the Propontis.

HYLAS, in fabulous history, son of Theodamus, and favorite of Hercules. He was ravished by the nymphs of a fountain as he was taking out water; and afterwards drowned in the Hyla.

HYLOZOISTS, vλŋ, matter, and Zwŋ, life, a sect of atheists among the ancient Greek philosophers, who maintained that matter had some natural perception, without animal sensation, or reflection in itself considered; but that this imperfect life occasioned that organisation whence

sensation and reflection afterwards arose. Of these, some held only one life, which they called a plastic nature, presiding regularly and invariably over the whole corporeal universe, which they represented as a kind of large plant or vegetable: these were called the cosmoplastic and stoical atheists, because the stoics held such a nature, though many of them supposed it to be the instrument of the deity. Others thought that every particle of matter was endued with life, and made the mundane system to depend upon a certain mixture of chance and pastic or orderly nature united together. These were called Stratonici from Strato Lampsacenus, a disciple of Theophrastus, called also Physic us, who was first a celebrated Peripatetic, and afterwards formed this new system of atheism for himself. HYM, n. s. A species of dog (unless it is by mistake for lym.-Johnson.)

Avaunt, you curs

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the virginal membrane: a marriage song: any thing pertaining to marriage.

And wedded had he with full blissful chere,
King Pandiones fairè doughter dere,
That hight Progne, the floure of hire countie,
Though Juno liste not at the fest to be,
Ne Hymen, that the god of weddyng is.

Chaucer. Legende of Good Women,
Run now you shepherd swains; ah! run you thither,
Where this fair bridegroom leads the blessed way:
And haste you lovely maids, haste you together
With this sweet bride, while yet the sun-shine day
Guides your blind steps; while yet loud summons
That every wood and hill resounds withal,

call,

Come Hymen, Hymen, come, drest in thy golden pall. Fletcher's Purple Island.

And heavenly choirs the hymenean sung.

Milton. For her the spouse prepares the bridal ring; For her white virgins hymeneals sing. Pope. The suitors heard, and deemed the mirthful voice A signal of her hymeneal choice. Id. Odyssey.

HYMEN, OF HYMEN EUS, in ancient mythology the son of Bacchus and Venus, and the god of marriage. He was invoked in epithalamiums, and other matrimonial ceremonies. The poets crown this deity with a chaplet of roses, and represent him enervated with pleasures, dressed in a yellow robe and yellow shoes, with a torch in his hand. The new married couple bore garlands of flowers on the wedding day; which custom also obtained among the Hebrews, and even among Christians during the first ages of the church, as appears from Tertullian.

HYMEN, Yuny, in anatomy, is a thin membrane or skin, sometimes circular, of different breadths, more or less smooth, and sometimes semilunar, formed by the union of the internal membrane of the great canal with that on the inside of the ala, resembling a piece of fine parchment. This membrane is stretched in the

neck of the womb of virgins, below the nympha, leaving in some subjects a very small opening, m others a larger, and in all rendering the external orifice narrower than the rest of the cavity, and to be broken when they are deflowered; an effusion of blood following the breach. See ANATOMY. The hymen is considered as the test of virginity, an opinion which is very ancient. See Deuteronomy 22, 13. In infants it is a fine thin membrane, not very conspicuous, because of the natural straitness of the passage itself, which does not admit of any great expansion in so little room. This membrane grows more distinct, as well as firm, by age, and it is sometimes very strong and even impervious, when incision becomes necessary,

HYMENEA, the bastard locust tree; a genus of the monogynia order, and decandria class of plants: natural order thirty-third, lomentaceæ. CAL. quinquepartite: there are five petals, nearly equal; the style is intorted; the legumen full of meally pulp. There is but one species, viz.

H. courbarilla, or the courbaril, a large tree which grows naturally in the Spanish West Indies. The trunk is covered with a ligh ash-colored bark; is often more than sixty feet high,

and three in diameter. The branches are furnished with dark green leaves, which stand by pairs on one common foot-stalk, diverging from their base in manner of a pair of shears when opened. The flowers come out in loose spikes at the ends of the branches, and are yellow, striped with purple. Each consists of five petals placed in a double calyx, the outer leaf of which is divided into five parts, and the inner one is cut into five teeth at its brim. In the centre are ten declining stamina, longer than the petals, surrounding an oblong germen, which becomes a thick, fleshy, brown pod, four or five inches long and one broad, with a suture on both edges, and includes three or four purplish seeds, somewhat of the shape of Windsor beans, but smaller. The seeds are covered with a light brown sugary substance, which the Indians scrape off and eat with great avidity, and which is very pleasant and agreeable. At the principal roots, under ground, is found collected in large lumps a yellowish-red transparent gum, which, when dissolved in rectified spirit of wine, affords a most excellent varnish, and is the gum anime of the shops.

HYMENOPTERA, from un, membrane, and repov, a wing, in the Linnean system of zoology, an order of insects, having four membranaceous wings; the tails of the females are furnished with stings, which in some are used for instilling poison, and in others for merely piercing the bark and leaves of trees, and the bodies of other animals, in which they deposit See ENTOMOLOGY. HYMETHUS, or HYMETTUS, in ancient geography, a mountain of Attica near Athens, famous for its marble quarries, and for its excellent honey. See GREECE. Pliny says that Crassus first fetched marble columns from it.

their eggs.

HYMN, n. s., v. a., & v. n. Fr. hymne; HYMN'ICK, adj. 5 Gr. ύμνος, υμνεί. A song of praise or adoration; an encomiastic song to some superior being; to praise, or wor

ship, or sing songs of thanksgiving: hymnic, relating to hymns, or spiritual songs. Doe thou vouchsafe with thy love-kindling ligh: To' illuminate my dim and dulled eyne, And beautitie this sacred hymne of thyne.

Spenser's Hymnes.

As I erst in the praise of mine own dame,
So now in honour of thy mother dear,
An honourable hymn I eke should frame. Spenser.
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse. Shaksp.
When steel grows

Soft as a parasites silk, let hymns be made
An overture for the wars.
Id. Coriolanus.

There is an hymn sung; but the subject of it is always the praises of Adam, and Neab, and Abraham, concluding ever with a thanksgiving for the nativity of our Saviour. Bacon.

He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnick notes In birds', heaven's choristers, organick throats; Which, if they did not die, might seem to be A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy. Donne. They touched their golden harps, and hymning praised

God and his works.

Milton.

Whose easier business were to serve their lord

High up in Heaven, with songs to hymn his throne, And practised distance, to cringe, not fight.

Id.

Farewell, you happy shades, Where angels first should practise hymns, and string Their tuneful harps, when they to heaven would sing. Dryden.

He had not left alive this patient saint, This anvil of affronts, but sent him hence, To hold a peaceful branch of palm above, And hymn it in the quire. Id. Spanish Friar. How the soldier's rough strain seems Softened by distance to a hymn-like cadence!

Byron. Deformed Transformed. AllYMN, Isidore remarks, is properly a song of joy, full of the praises of God, and is distin guished from threua, which is a mourning song, full of lamentation. St. Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, is said to have been the first that composed hymns to be sung in churches, and was followed by St. Ambrose. In the Greek Liturgy there are four kinds of hymns; but the word is not taken in the sense of a praise offered in verse, but simply of a laud or praise. The angelic hymn, or gloria in excelsis, makes the first kind; the trisagion, the second; the cherubic hymn, the third; and the hymn of victory and triumph, called striking, the last. The hymns of the ancients generally consisted of three sorts of stanzas; one of which, called strophe, was sung by the band as they walked from east to west; another, called antistrophe, was performed as they returned from west to east; the third part or epode, was sung before the altar. The Jewish hymns were accompanied with trumpets, drums, and cymbals.

HYOIDES, in anatomy, the bone at the root of the tongue. See ANATOMY.

HYOSCYAMUS, henbane: a genus of the monogynia order, and pentandria class of plants: natural order twenty-eighth, lurida. COR. funnel-shaped and obtuse: stamina inclining to one side: CAPS, covered and bilocular. There are several species, one of which, viz.

H. niger, or common henbane, is a native of Britain. It grows on road-sides, and among

rubbish. It is a biennial plant, with long fleshy roots which strike deep into the ground, sending out several large soft leaves, deeply flashed on their edges; the following spring the stalks come up, about two feet high, garnished with flowers standing on one side in a double row, sitting close to the stalks alternately. They are of a dark purplish color, with a black bottom; and are succeeded by roundish capsules, which open with a lid at the top, and have two cells filled with small irregular seeds. The seeds, leaves, and roots of this plant, as well as of all other species of this genus, are poisonous: and many well attested instances of their bad effects are recorded; madness, convulsions, and death, being the common consequence. In a smaller dose, they occasion giddiness and stupor. It is said that the leaves scattered about a house will drive away mice.-The juice of the plant, evaporated to an extract, is prescribed in some cases as a narcotic; in which respect it may be a powerful medicine if properly managed. The dose is from half a scruple to half a drachm. Goats are not fond of the plant; horses, cows, sheep, and swine, refuse it.

To HYP, v. a. Barbarously contracted from hypochondriack. To make melancholy; to dispirit.

I have been to the last degree hypped since I saw you. Spectator. HYP'ALLAGE, 1. s. Gr. ὑπαλλαγή. A figure by which words change their cases with each other.

HYPANTE, or HYPERPANTE, a name given by the Greeks to the feast of the presentation of Jesus in the temple.-This word, which signifies lowly or humble meeting, was given to this feast from the meeting of old Simeon and Anna the prophetess in the temple, when Jesus was brought thither.

HYPATIA, a learned and beautiful lady of antiquity, the daughter of Theon, a celebrated philosopher and mathematician, and president of the famous Alexandrian school, was born at Alexandria about the end of the fourth century. She made such progress in philosophy, geometry, astronomy, and the mathematics, that she was esteemed the most learned person of her time. At length she was thought worthy to succeed her father in that distinguished and important employment, the government of the school of Alexandria; and to teach from the chair of Ammonius and Hierocles. Her fame was so extensive, and her worth so universally acknowledged, that she had a very crowded auditory. One of her pupils was the celebrated Synesius, afterwards bishop of Ptolemais, who every where bears the strongest and most grateful testimony to her abilities and virtues. When Nicephorus intended to pass the highest compliment on the princess Eudocia, he thought he could not do it better than by calling her another Hypatia. But while Hypatia shone the brightest ornament of Alexandria, a kind of civil war which broke out between Orestes the governor, and St. Cyril the patriarch, proved fatal to the lady. In 415 about 500 monks attacked the governor, and would have killed him had he not been rescued by the townsmen; but, the respect which Orestes had for Hypatia causVOL. XI.

ing her to be traduced among the mob, who dragged her from her chair, tore her to pieces, and burned her limbs. Cyril has been suspected of fomenting this tragedy, and Dr. Cave endeavours to remove the imputation of such a horrible action from the patriarch; calling the Alexandrian mob, levissimum hominum genus, a very trifling inconstant people.' But though Cyril should neither have been the perpetrator, nor the contriver of Hypatia's death, yet he did not discountenance it; for he received the dead body of Ammonius, one of the most forward in the riot, and pronounced a panegyric upon the ruffian, as having died a martyr for the truth. This transaction. so disgraceful to the church of Alexandria, took place A. D. 415 in the reign of Theodosius II. Hypatia published Commentaries on Apollonius's Conics, Diophantus's Arithmetic, and other works.

HYPECOUM, wild cumin: a genus of the digynia order, and tetandria class of plants; natural order twenty-fourth, corydales: CAL. diphyllous: the petals four: the exterior two larger and trifid: the fruit a pod. There are seven species, all low herbaceous plants with yellow flowers, and easily propagated by seeds. The juice is of a yellow color, resembling that of celandine, and is affirmed by some eminent physicians to be as narcotic as opium. From the nectarium the bees collect great quantities of honey.

HYPER, n. s. A word barbarously curtailed by Prior from hypercritic.-Johnson. A hypercritic: one more critical than necessity requires. Prior did not know the meaning of the word. The force of the Greek preposition, however, which is the etymon of this word, is to increase the force or meaning of those words with which it is found in composition, as may be seen by the examples:

Prior.

Criticks I read on other men, And hypers upon them again. HYPERBATON, in grammar, a figurative construction, inverting the natural and proper order of words and sentences. The several species of the hyperbaton are, the anastrophe, the hysteron-proteron, the hypallage, synchysis, tmesis, parenthesis, and the hyperbaton strictly so called. See ANASTROPHE,

HYPERBATON, strictly so called, is a long retention of the verb which completes the sentence. Instances occur in Virgil, wherein the verb is placed at the distance of nine lines from the nominative.

HYPER BOLA, n. s. HYPER BOLE, n. s. HYPERBOL'ICAL, adj. HYPERBOL'IC, adj. HYPERBOL'ICALLY, adv.

Fr. hyperbole; Gr. υπερ and βάλλω. In geometry, a section of a cone made by a plane, so that the HYPERBOL'IFORM, adv. axis of the section inclines to the parallel leg of the cone, which in the parabola is opposite to it, and in the ellipsis intersects it. The axis of the hyperbolical section will meet also with the opposite side of the cone, when produced above the vertex.-Harris. Hyperbole a figure in rhetoric by which any thing is increased or diminished beyond the exact truth; as, he runs faster than lightning. His possessions are fallen to dust. He was so gaunt,

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