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noun
Axis  n.  (pl. axes)  
1.
A straight line, real or imaginary, passing through a body, on which it revolves, or may be supposed to revolve; a line passing through a body or system around which the parts are symmetrically arranged.
2.
(Math.) A straight line with respect to which the different parts of a magnitude are symmetrically arranged; as, the axis of a cylinder, i. e., the axis of a cone, that is, the straight line joining the vertex and the center of the base; the axis of a circle, any straight line passing through the center.
3.
(Bot.) The stem; the central part, or longitudinal support, on which organs or parts are arranged; the central line of any body.
4.
(Anat.)
(a)
The second vertebra of the neck, or vertebra dentata.
(b)
Also used of the body only of the vertebra, which is prolonged anteriorly within the foramen of the first vertebra or atlas, so as to form the odontoid process or peg which serves as a pivot for the atlas and head to turn upon.
5.
(Crystallog.) One of several imaginary lines, assumed in describing the position of the planes by which a crystal is bounded.
6.
(Fine Arts) The primary or secondary central line of any design.
Anticlinal axis (Geol.), a line or ridge from which the strata slope downward on the two opposite sides.
Synclinal axis, a line from which the strata slope upward in opposite directions, so as to form a valley.
Axis cylinder (Anat.), the neuraxis or essential, central substance of a nerve fiber; called also axis band, axial fiber, and cylinder axis.
Axis in peritrochio, the wheel and axle, one of the mechanical powers.
Axis of a curve (Geom.), a straight line which bisects a system of parallel chords of a curve; called a principal axis, when cutting them at right angles, in which case it divides the curve into two symmetrical portions, as in the parabola, which has one such axis, the ellipse, which has two, or the circle, which has an infinite number. The two axes of the ellipse are the major axis and the minor axis, and the two axes of the hyperbola are the transverse axis and the conjugate axis.
Axis of a lens, the straight line passing through its center and perpendicular to its surfaces.
Axis of a microscope or Axis of a telescope, the straight line with which coincide the axes of the several lenses which compose it.
Axes of coordinates in a plane, two straight lines intersecting each other, to which points are referred for the purpose of determining their relative position: they are either rectangular or oblique.
Axes of coordinates in space, the three straight lines in which the coördinate planes intersect each other.
Axis of a balance, that line about which it turns.
Axis of oscillation, of a pendulum, a right line passing through the center about which it vibrates, and perpendicular to the plane of vibration.
Axis of polarization, the central line around which the prismatic rings or curves are arranged.
Axis of revolution (Descriptive Geom.), a straight line about which some line or plane is revolved, so that the several points of the line or plane shall describe circles with their centers in the fixed line, and their planes perpendicular to it, the line describing a surface of revolution, and the plane a solid of revolution.
Axis of symmetry (Geom.), any line in a plane figure which divides the figure into two such parts that one part, when folded over along the axis, shall coincide with the other part.
Axis of the equator, Axis of the ecliptic, Axis of the horizon (or other circle considered with reference to the sphere on which it lies), the diameter of the sphere which is perpendicular to the plane of the circle.
Axis of the Ionic capital (Arch.), a line passing perpendicularly through the middle of the eye of the volute.
Neutral axis (Mech.), the line of demarcation between the horizontal elastic forces of tension and compression, exerted by the fibers in any cross section of a girder.
Optic axis of a crystal, the direction in which a ray of transmitted light suffers no double refraction. All crystals, not of the isometric system, are either uniaxial or biaxial.
Optic axis, Visual axis (Opt.), the straight line passing through the center of the pupil, and perpendicular to the surface of the eye.
Radical axis of two circles (Geom.), the straight line perpendicular to the line joining their centers and such that the tangents from any point of it to the two circles shall be equal to each other.
Spiral axis (Arch.), the axis of a twisted column drawn spirally in order to trace the circumvolutions without.
Axis of abscissas and Axis of ordinates. See Abscissa.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Axis" Quotes from Famous Books



... a considerable distance, rises the long range of mountains which the inhabitants of Christ Church suppose to be the backbone of the island, and which they call the Snowy Range. The real axis of the island, however, lies much farther back, and between it and the range now in sight the land has no rest, but is continually steep up and steep down, as if Nature had determined to try how much mountain she could place upon a given space; she had, however, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... itself, an' then look out for the sign that's expected. He walks up to the top of the mountain, an' turns to the four corners of the heavens, to thry if he can see it; an' when he finds that he cannot, he goes back to Beal Derg. who, afther the other touches him, starts up and axis him, 'Is the time come?' He replies, 'No; the man is, but the hour is not!' an' that instant they're both asleep again. Now, you see, while the soger is on the mountain top, the mouth of the cave is ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... is not logical, or good, or just; nor is he any other distinct thing; and this through the force of his own fatal actions, through the influence of the deviation in the earth's axis, or for whatsoever other equally amusing cause. Everything individual is always found mixed, full of absurdities of perspective and picturesque contradictions,—contradictions and absurdities that shock us, because we insist on submitting individuals to principles which ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... were distributed with perfect equality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the 45 degree line and the index would be zero; if income were distributed with perfect inequality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the horizontal axis and the right vertical axis and the ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... centre of the eddy, of course, there must be a sort of core of stillness. By a vehement struggle he attained it and avoided crossing it. Working gently and warily he kept the log right across the axis of the eddy, where huddled a crowd of chips and sticks. Here the log turned slowly, very slowly, on its own centre; and for a few seconds of exquisite relief Henderson let himself sink into a sort of lethargy. He was roused by a sudden shot, and the spat of a heavy bullet into the log about ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... yelling more fiercely than ever, and at a shout the sweeps ceased beating the water, and every man seized his arms, when there was a peculiar hissing sound heard; the cutter heeled over, then righted, and, to the wonder and horror of all on board, she began to turn round slowly as upon an axis, as if preparatory to being sucked down into a frightful whirlpool. In one short minute she had turned twice, and then, as if caught in some mighty current, began to glide rapidly round the bay at first toward the burning mountain, ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... struck a submerged sandbank and beached on it. Chips' little body bent on the pole, but except to swivel the punt on its axis ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... Compared with Goethe we feel that he lacks that serene impartiality of mind which results from breadth of culture; nay, he seems narrow, insular, almost provincial. He reminds us of those saints of Dante who gather brightness by revolving on their own axis. But through this very limitation of range he gains perhaps in intensity and the impressiveness which results from eagerness of personal conviction. If we read Wordsworth through, as I have just done, we find ourselves changing our mind about him at every other page, so uneven is he. ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... moaned and eagles made their nest. Once more, far, far below, I saw the lights Of distant cities, at the mountain's feet, Clustered like constellations.. . Over me, like the dome of some strange shrine, Housing our great new weapon of the sky, And moving on its axis like a moon Glimmered the new Uraniborg. Shadows passed Like monks, between it and the low grey walls That lodged them, like a fortress in the rocks, Their monastery of thought. A shadow neared me. I heard, once more, ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... figure, bent over a straight line in it, has the two parts perfectly fitting on each other, the figure is symmetrical about that straight line, which may be called an axis of symmetry. Thus every diameter of a circle is an axis of symmetry: every regular oval has two axes of symmetry at right angles to each other: every regular polygon of an odd number of sides has an axis joining each corner to the middle of the opposite sides: every regular polygon of an even number of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... length; entirely black, with knotty antennae, which are slightly thicker towards their extremities. The unsheathed ovipositor is implanted in the under portion of the abdomen, about the middle, and at right angles to the axis of the body, as in the case of the Leucospis, the pest of the apiary. Not having taken the precaution to capture it, I do not know what name the entomologists have bestowed upon it, or even if this dwarf exterminator ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... Bridges.—The largest movable bridges revolve about a vertical axis. The bridge is carried on a circular base plate with a central pivot and a circular track for a live ring and conical rollers. A circular revolving platform rests on the pivot and rollers. A toothed arc fixed to the revolving platform or ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... moved only along the east and west axis of the Exposition. The north and south development is not without its charm. The terraced city of San Francisco, on the south, without a doubt looks best on a densely foggy day. With its fussy, ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... swing or shove it and then lift the other end and shove it. If you will watch expressmen at work you will notice that they roll boxes and trunks, holding them almost on end and tipping them just enough to turn them along their shortest axis. In this way the boxes carry themselves, so far as their main weight ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... reading. He considered all books filled with lies and impositions, and seldom could look into one without finding something to rouse his spleen. Nothing put him into a greater passion than the assertion that the world turned on its own axis every four-and-twenty hours. He swore it was an outrage upon common sense. 'Why, if it did,' said he, 'there would not be a drop of water in the well by morning, and all the milk and cream in the ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... the countryside. The orderly fields stretched away toward gentle slopes on which cows were grazing. Here and there a village abruptly spread out its roofs, which rotated on the axis of a spire. All the windows gave back the light of late afternoon; and far off, against a hollow between two hills, like wine in a cup, there was a ruddy flash of water. It was the Sound; and beyond ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... or said I was his father and mother, and the lord of the world; and if I said at noonday, "It is night," he did not exclaim, "Behold the moon and stars!" He never tried to prove to me that the earth revolved on its axis once in twenty-four hours by my favor. "What! dost thou think him a Christian that he would go about to deceive thee?" No, he was as proudly truthful as a Rajpoot, as frank and manly as a Goorkah, and as honest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... over; the axle of the wheel stood straight on end; the white cat ran along to the highest point and stood there humping its back; the eddy caught the wooden fabric, carried it round in wide circles four or five times, turning on its own axis, creaking and groaning, and then it disappeared under the water. With it the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... monstrous Titan over six hundred feet tall. A globe, and humans in that tremendous size—the very weight of them—in a moment more of this growth—would disarrange the rotation of the Earth on its axis!... ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings

... course of the middle ages, certain tomb-churches in Rome, with a centralised plan, were turned into places of public worship. But, for the plan of the ordinary church, the basilica, with its longitudinal axis, was general. In the eastern empire, on the other hand, the centralised plan was employed from an early date for large churches; and in this way was evolved the magnificent style of architecture which culminated in Santa Sophia at Constantinople. Here the centralised ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson

... or artistic life. All is leveled down and compressed under one Bolshevist lid. The only burning question is the problem of food. The only blessed object of Bolshevist providence is the remaining bourgeois element, the only axis around which all their creative experiments revolve. On the one hand, those who toil,—and on the other the "parasites," and to the latter class all the members of the liberal professions, all the literateurs, the lawyers and the clergy were assigned. The sympathizers ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... modified together with result of fractures: two forms predominate, the plate and the needle; these forms falling through air assume definite position—the plate falls horizontally swaying to and fro, the needle turns rapidly about its longer axis, which remains horizontal. Simpson showed excellent experiments to illustrate; consideration of these facts and refraction of light striking crystals clearly leads to explanation of various complicated halo phenomena such as recorded and such as seen by us on ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... during the past two weeks in Washington, and Moscow and Chungking. That is the primary objective of the declaration of solidarity signed in Washington on January 1, 1942, by 26 Nations united against the Axis powers. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... and moon were seen floating on the heavenly ocean escorted by the constellations, and the months and days. There was a far withdrawn holy place, small and obscure, approached through a succession of courts and columned halls, all so arranged on a central axis as to point to the sunrise. Before the outer gates were obelisks and avenues of statues. Such were the shrines of the old solar religion, so oriented that on one day in the year the beams of the rising sun, or of some bright ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... receives the same treatment as the Madonna. When the flower-stems grow up they throw out roots. A few lumps of horse manure should be placed round for these roots to lay hold of. They are increased by the tiny bulbs which form at the axis of the leaves of the flower-stem. When these fall with a touch they are planted in rich, light earth, about 6 in. apart. In four or five years' time they ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... placed symmetrically to the metal cover, and the space between should, of course, not be too small, certainly not less than, say, five centimetres, but much more if possible; especially the two sides of the zinc box, which are at right angles to the axis of the coil, should be sufficiently remote from the latter, as otherwise they might impair its action and ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla

... twigs that would bend to make wicker-ware, at least none yet found out; and as to a wheel-barrow, I fancied I could make; all but the wheel, but that I had no notion of, neither did I know how to go about it; besides, I had no possible way to make the iron gudgeons for the spindle or axis of the wheel to run in, so I gave it over; and so for carrying away the earth which I dug out of the cave, I made me a thing like a hod which the labourers carry mortar in, when ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... government was built. To use a figure suggested by the calamity which has lately befallen one of the most beloved of our cities, there is a theory that earthquakes are caused by a necessary movement on the part of the globe to regain its axis. Whether or not the theory be true, it has its political application. In America to-day we are trying—whatever the cost—to regain the true axis established for us by the founders of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... "Three Men" (or "Three of Them"). The tales and sketches published prior to this work were merely founded on episodes, catastrophes, or descriptive passages from the author's rich store of material. They certainly conveyed the essence of the life of his characters. They disclosed the axis of these people's existence. But they are seldom free from a certain tiresome impressionism—and often make quite undue pretensions. The didactic is too obvious. Gorki is not always satisfied with saying, here is a bit of life. He tries to put in a little ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald

... insect for a moment with the end of her spinnerets; then, with her front tarsi, she sets her victim spinning. The Squirrel, in the moving cylinder of his cage, does not display a more graceful or nimbler dexterity. A cross-bar of the sticky spiral serves as an axis for the tiny machine, which turns, turns swiftly, like a spit. It is a treat to the ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... energy may be wasted, going aside from the point; it may also go against the successful performance of an act. It does harm by getting in the way. Compare the behavior of a beginner in riding a bicycle with that of the expert. There is little axis of direction in the energies put forth; they are largely dispersive and centrifugal. Direction involves a focusing and fixating of action in order that it may be truly a response, and this requires ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... cocoa-nut fibre as I suppose. It was named only Cycas. Was it Cycas pectinata? I suppose that I cannot be wrong in believing that what first appears above ground is a true leaf, for I can see no stem or axis. Lastly, you may remember that I said that we could not raise Opuntia nigricans; now I must confess to a piece of stupidity; one did come up, but my gardener and self stared at it, and concluded that it could not be a seedling Opuntia, but now ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... Because that is the attitude of mind of the correct human person in such a case made and provided. That is, if an inevitable automatic action can be called an attitude of mind. Is rotation on its axis an attitude of a wheel's mind? To be sure, though, a wheel may turn either of two ways. A ratchet-wheel is ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... neither defined customs nor a general character. It is composed of exceptions and of singularities. We are so naturally creatures of custom, our continual mobility has such a need of gravitating around one fixed axis, that motives of a personal order alone can determine us upon an habitual and voluntary exile from our native land. It is so, now in the case of an artist, a person seeking for instruction and change; now in the case of a business ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... the Psalmists and the Prophets desired to teach was not the daily rotation of the earth upon its axis, nor its yearly revolution round the ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... its development, growth of the embryo is slow, and in very early stages it is merely a rounded mass of cells. Later, the meristems of the epicotyl (stem or top) and root axis develop, but the whole embryo is still microscopic in size. Still later the cotyledons (seed leaves) start development from the apical meristem and their growth in length is rapid, but they are very thin and follow the contours of the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... a stationary building, but must be arranged after a plan that is conducive to motion. A moving structure, as a wagon or a bicycle, has within it some strong central part to which the remainder is joined. The same is true of the skeleton. That part to which the others are attached is a long, bony axis, known as the spinal column. Certain parts, as the ribs and the skull, are attached directly to the spinal column, while others are attached indirectly to it. The arrangement of all the parts is such that the spinal column is made ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... the lens; consequently the focus E, produced by the convergence of the rays proceding from A, must form an image of A, only in a different relative position; the middle point of C being in a direct line with the axis of the lens, will have its image formed on the axis F, and the rays proceeding from the point B will form an image at D; so that by imagining luminous objects to be made up of all infinite number of radiating points and the rays from each individual point, although ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey

... mouth, but of late years has become overgrown with reeds. A few years back they set to work to cut a channel through them, but getting tired of the work gave it up. The length of the lagoon appears to be about three to four miles, and about one to one and a half in breadth. Its major axis runs parallel to the coastline, or nearly due east and west. Twenty minutes' paddling brought us round the point of a small headland, where we came in sight of a pretty lake-village built upon piles, at some little distance from the shore, ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... between the moral powers and the powers that rule the worlds. So in this Sutra the fixed polestar is the eternal spirit about which all things move, as well as the star toward which points the axis of the earth. Deep mysteries attend both, and the veil of mystery is only to be raised by Meditation, by open-eyed vision ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston

... his journey, he tells him a sovereign remedy for blistered feet. Now comes the noontide hour,—of all the hours nearest akin to midnight; for each has its own calmness and repose. Soon, however, the world begins to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest epoch of the day; when an accident impedes the march of sublunary things. The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner, laden with wood from the Eastern forests, she sticks immovably, right athwart ...
— The Toll Gatherer's Day (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... has developed the grade of spiritual vision which opens the Desire World to him and he looks at the same object, he will see it both inside and out. If he looks closely, he will perceive every little atom spinning upon its axis and no part or particle will be ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel

... and write Lingua Terra. He was a mathematician as far as long division and decimal fractions. He knew that Kwannon was the second planet of the Gettler Beta system, 23,000 miles in circumference, rotating on its axis once in 22.8 Galactic Standard hours and making an orbital circuit around Gettler Beta once in 372.06 axial days, and that Alpha was an M-class pulsating variable with an average period of four hundred days, and that Beta orbited around it in a long elipse every ninety years. He didn't believe ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper

... about this period we find recorded the names of Meton, who introduced the Metonic cycle into Greece and erected the first sundial at Athens; Eudoxus, who persuaded the Greeks to adopt the year of 365-1/4 days; and Nicetas, who taught that the Earth completed a daily revolution on her axis. ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... For the very definition of sin is living to myself and neglecting Him. He is the centre, and if I might use a violent figure, every planet that wrenches itself away from gravitation towards, and revolution round, that centre, and prefers to whirl on its own axis, has broken the law of the celestial spheres, and brought discord into the heavenly harmony. All men stand condemned in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... human thought. As the electric current is not light But heat and power as well. Our little brains Resist God and make thought and love as well. But God is more than these. Oh I heard much Of music, heard the whirring as of wheels, Or buzzing as of ears when a room is still. That is the axis of profoundest life Which turns and rests not. And I heard the cry And hearing wept, of man's soul, heard the ages, The epochs of this earth as it were the feet Of multitudes in corridors. And I knew The agony of genius and the woe ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... the street. Plainly, here was conceit personified, and yet a conceit mingled with a maddening insolence. His expression told all that this thing which he was about to do was worthy of the closest attention. He was the axis upon which the interest ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... illustrated by the heat and light that go forth from the sun of the natural world. These two also make one in their going out from that sun. That they do not make one on earth is owing not to the sun, but to the earth. For the earth revolves daily round its axis, and has a yearly motion following the ecliptic, which gives the appearance that heat and light do not make one. For in the middle of summer there is more of heat than of light, and in the middle of winter more of light than of ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... elongates and contracts between the extremes of temperature from 14 to 16 inches; the vertical rise and fall in the centre of the main span ranges between 2 ft. 3 in. and 2 ft. 9 in.; and before the suspenders were attached to the cable it actually revolved on its own axis through an arc of thirty degrees, when exposed to the sun shining upon it on one side. You do not perceive this motion, and you would know nothing about it unless you watched the gauges ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley

... parallel to the Atlantic coast, and ending in northern Alabama, forms the geological axis of the southern states. Bordering the mountains proper is a broad belt of hills known as the Piedmont or Metamorphic region, marked by granite and other crystalline rocks, and having an elevation decreasing from 1,000 to 500 feet. The soil ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey

... attracting objects toward the north or south poles. You have guessed something of this by the use of the compass, or electric needle. Opposed to these is centrifugal electric force, drawing objects from east to west, or in the opposite direction. This force is created by the whirl of the earth upon its axis, and is easily utilized, although your scientific men have as yet ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum

... length with the progress of the seasons: sometimes but little more than its point is visible; at others, it is seen extending over a space of 120 degrees. Astronomically speaking, the axis of the zodiacal light is said to lie in the plane of the solar equator, with an angle of more than 7 degrees to the ecliptic, which it consequently intersects, the points of intersection becoming its nodes, and these nodes are the parts through which the earth passes in March and September. The ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... turba, laceratis comas miserumque tunsae pectus effuso genas fletu rigatis? levia perpessae sumus, si flenda patimur. Ilium vobis modo, mihi cecidit olim, cum ferus curru incito mea membra raperet et gravi gemeret sono Peliacis axis pondere Hectoreo tremens. tunc obruta atque eversa quodcumque accidit torpens malis rigeusque sine sensu fero. iam erepta Danais coniugem sequerer meum, nisi hic teneret: hic meos animos domat morique prohibet; cogit hic aliquid deos adhuc ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... motions with the edge of the flat right hand transversely by the tips of the left, and upon the wrist—cut off the ends; (8) then cut upon the left hand, still held in the same position, with the right, the cuts being parallel to the longitudinal axis of the palm—split; (9) both hands closed in front of the body, about four inches apart, with forefingers and thumbs approximating half circles, palms toward the ground, move them forward so that the back of the hand comes forward and the half circles imitate the movement of wheels—wagon, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... soul? With this thought the memory of her virginal shyness stung his senses as if it were the challenge of sex. Chivalry, love, vanity, curiosity—all these circled helplessly around the invisible axis of ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... pictures of gold and precious stones of India. September 13, two hundred miles west of the Canaries, Columbus is horrified to find that the compass, his only guide, is failing him, and no longer points to the north star. No one had yet dreamed that the earth turns on its axis. The sailors are ready for mutiny, but Columbus tells them the north star is not exactly in the north. October 1 they are two thousand three hundred miles from land, though Columbus tells the sailors one thousand seven hundred. Columbus discovers a bush in ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden

... whose household is there a flute made of green jade? The fish fears lest the earth from its axis might drop. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... it shows its power chiefly by the way it comes forward and takes possession of the west front, but if you want a foot-rule to measure by, you may mark that the old, twelfth-century lancet-windows below it are not exactly in its axis. At the outset, in the original plan of 1090, or thereabouts, the old tower—the southern tower—was given greater width than the northern. Such inequalities were common in the early churches, and so is a great deal of dispute in modern ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... my purpose ... [the difficulties] arose, not from any defect in my process, but were owing to the small quantity of the metal operated upon and the imperfect arrangement of the purifying vessel, which ought to be so constituted that it may be turned upon an axis, the blast taken off, the alloy added and the steel poured out through a spout ... Such a purifying vessel Mr. Bessemer has delineated in ...
— The Beginnings of Cheap Steel • Philip W. Bishop

... 1 the curve DD' represents the conditions of demand. It is supposed to be drawn in such a way that if any point, Q, be taken on the curve, and the perpendicular QN be drawn to meet the base line, or axis OX, then ON will represent the amount that will be demanded at a price represented by QN (or Ol). In other words, distances measured along OY represent prices, and distances measured along OX represent quantities ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... streams, and the courses of these are fixed by the conformation of land—just as a river's flow is turned right or left, and sometimes backward in eddies, by the form of its banks and bottom. Trade winds, and the earth's motion on its axis, still further modify the streams, both ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne

... is to be found in the following manner:—'Take a pendulum, vibrating seconds of time, in the latitude of London, in vacuum and at the level of the sea; divide all that part thereof which lies between the axis of suspension and the centre of oscillation into 391,393 equal parts; then will 10,000 of these parts be an imperial inch, 12 whereof make a foot, and 36 whereof make a yard.' All other measures of linear extension are to be computed from this. Thus, 'the foot, the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... of its capricious floods, had carried away the land upon which the architects had intended to erect the side aisles; and if they wished to add to the existing structure a great court and a pylon, without which no temple was considered complete, it was necessary to turn the axis of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... a philosopher that was excellently skilled in the noble science or study of astronomy, who told me he had some years studied for some simile, or proper allusion, to explain to his scholars the phenomena of the sun's motion round its own axis, and could never happen upon one to his mind, till by accident he saw his maid Betty trundling her mop: surprised with the exactness of the motion to describe the thing he wanted, he goes into his study, calls his pupils about him, and tells them that Betty, who herself knew ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... they wouldn't go off, sometimes they had holes in them, and mostly they didn't seem to be good likenesses. All this time the gentleman with the wand was going on in the dark (tapping away at the heavenly bodies between whiles, like a wearisome woodpecker), about a sphere revolving on its own axis eight hundred and ninety-seven thousand millions of times—or miles—in two hundred and sixty-three thousand five hundred and twenty-four millions of something elses, until I thought if this was a birthday it were better never to have been born. Olympia, also, became much ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... but one, which was travelling south at the rate of two miles an hour. At this rate, thirty hours would suffice to bring us to the point of the axis at which the terrestrial meridians unite. Did the current which was carrying us along pass on to the pole itself, or was there any land which might arrest our progress? This was another question, and I discussed it ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... to feel weight. The ship was going into rotation. The feeling increased until he felt normally heavy again. There was no other sensation, even though the space cruiser now was spinning on its axis through space at unaltered speed. The centrifugal force produced by the spinning ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... sir, that the changes in the seasons are owing to 'the inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit,' I do not exactly ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... Conversation in Indiana seems to drift into story-telling inevitably. John Ware once read a paper before the Indianapolis Literary Club to prove that this Hoosier trait was derived from the South. He drew a species of ellipsoid of which the Ohio River was the axis, sketching his line to include the Missouri of Mark Twain, the Illinois of Lincoln, the Indiana of Eggleston and Riley, and the Kentucky that so generously endowed these younger commonwealths. North of the Ohio the anecdotal genius diminished, ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... nearest moon, is only 4,000 miles from the surface of Mars, and is obliged to move with such great velocity to prevent falling, that it actually makes a circuit about its primary in only seven hours and thirty-eight minutes. But Mars turns on its axis in twenty-four hours and thirty-seven minutes, so the moon goes round three times, while Mars does once, hence it rises in the west and sets in the east, making one day of Mars equal three of its months. This moon changes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... supposed to have been caused by the high temperature of the north pole as compared to that of the south pole, owing to the distribution of land around the two, the south having almost none. Dr. Croll thinks it was caused by the varying inclination of the earth's axis, which produced the relative position of the two poles toward the sun to be periodically reversed at distant periods. Dr. James Geikie agrees with Croll on the reverse of seasons every 10,500 years during certain periods of high ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... then the swollen part should be treated each day by painting it with tincture of iodin. In snake bite a straight incision penetrating into the flesh or muscle should be made across the center of the swelling and in the direction of the long axis of the face. After this has been done a small wad of cotton batting should be pressed against the wounds until the bleeding has almost stopped. Afterwards the following lotion may be applied to the wounds several times a day: Permanganate of potassium, half ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... Orion (Hubble) 2. The Great Nebula in Orion (Pease) 3. Model by Ellerman of summit of Mount Wilson, showing the observatory buildings among the trees and bushes 4. The 100-inch Hooker telescope 5. Erecting the polar axis of the 100-inch telescope 6. Lowest section of tube of 100-inch telescope, ready to leave Pasadena for Mount Wilson 7. Section of a steel girder for dome covering the 100-inch telescope, on its way up Mount Wilson 8. Erecting the steel building and revolving dome ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale

... have again been permitted to associate in our representative character, from the different sections of this Union, to pour into one common stream, the afflictions, the prayers, and sympathies of our oppressed people; the axis of time has brought around this glorious, annual event. And we are again brought to rejoice that the wisdom of Divine Providence has protected us during a year whose autumnal harvest has been a reign of terror and persecution, and whose winter ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... the individual. He shewed that the foundations of the skull and of the backbone were laid down in a fashion quite different, and that it was impossible to regard both skull and backbone as modifications of a common type laid down right along the axis of the body. The spinal column and the skull start from the same primitive condition, whence they immediately begin to diverge. It may be true to say that there is a primitive identity of structure between the spinal ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... sight in Nmes is the Roman Amphitheatre, the most perfect extant. In form it is elliptical, of which the great axis measures 437 ft., and the lesser 433 ft., and the height 70 ft. Around the building are two tiers of arcades, each tier having 60 arches, and all the arches being separated from each other by a Roman ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic— that angle which is chiefly responsible for our geography and therefore for our history—had caused the phenomenon known in London as summer. The whizzing globe happened to have turned its ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... various stages noted. He thus found, correctly, that their velocity increased. It is also said that he observed that bodies always fell a little to the eastward of the plumb line, and thence concluded that the earth revolved on its axis. He made careful experiments with billiard balls, discovering that the {614} momentum of the impact always was preserved entire in the motion of the balls struck. He measured forces by the weight and speed of the bodies ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... the Lat. abscissus, cut off), in the Cartesian system of co-ordinates, the distance of a point from the axis of y measured parallel to the horizontal axis (axis of x.) Thus PS (or OR) is the abscissa of P. The word appears for the first time in a Latin work written by Stefano degli Angeli (1623-1697), a professor of mathematics in Rome. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... no boys and no very small children. Some of the accomplishments were taught. French, drawing and painting, and what was called the "use of the globe," which meant a large globe with all the countries of the world upon it, arranged to turn around on an axis. This was a new thing. Doris was quite fascinated by it, and when she found the North Sea and the Devonshire coast and the "Wash" the girls looked on eagerly and straightway she ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... like that of sunlight, at the upper point, with dead black at the lower point, {209} and with the greatest diameter near the middle brightness, where the greatest saturations can be obtained. The axis of the double cone, extending from brightest white to dead black, would give the series of neutral grays. All the thousands of distinguishable colors, shades and tints, would find places ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... neither do I like the passionate life of Paris, with its ardor of reformation, which is driving youth into so many unknown ways. You alone know my opinions; to my mind the moral world revolves upon its own axis, like the material world. My poor protege demands (as you will see from his letter) things impossible. No power can resist ambitions so violent, so imperious, so absolute, as those of to-day. I am in favor ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... an axial plane vertically through the center of a tree, in most cases it would be found that the masses of foliage, however irregularly shaped on either side of such an axis, just about balanced each other. Similarly, in all our bodily movements, for every change of equilibrium there occurs an opposition and adjustment of members of such a nature that an axial plane through the center of gravity would ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... to lurch and heave on its axis. Vivid lights crossed and criss-crossed the atomic heavens. The fissures in the ground appeared now as black canals. The lower part of the circle of boulders disappeared. Off to the right came despairing screams. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... steps, and his loud, "Woah dar, blast yo' skins!" rang clearly through the resonant building. As it was, the coming of a bridal pair themselves could not have attracted more attention. Every pivotal head turned on its axis; even the visiting parson, with the huge Bible on his thin knees, half rose that he might peer over the pulpit behind ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... must probably picture to ourselves that the sensation from the strip of the retina stimulated during the quick eye-movement is, during the interval of movement or at least during the greater part of it, localized as if the axis of vision were still directed toward the original fixation-point. And when the new position of rest is reached and the disturbance on the retinal strip has not wholly died away, then the strip comes once more into consciousness, but this time correctly localized ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... to accomplish so much of the multifarious duties of society that one can scarcely imagine the social world revolving safely upon its axis without their intervention. Far be it from any to look upon the custom as a hollow mockery, for, without the system of formal visiting, or calling, society as it now stands could not exist. Such, too, are the complexities of modern existence that life would be all too short for the fulfillment ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... flying-machine. In the midst of a frame of light wood sits the operator, steadying himself with one hand, and with the other fuming a cremaillere, which appears to give a very quick rotatory movement to two glass globes revolving upon a vertical axis. The friction of the globes is supposed to develop electricity to which his ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... and some fans for winnowing the corn. In Nepal, however, they have in some measure made a further progress than in India, as they have numerous water-mills for grinding corn. The stones are little larger than those of hand-mills, and the upper one is turned round by being fixed on the end of the axis of the water wheel, which is horizontal, and is placed under the floor of the mill, with which the stones are on a level. This wheel consists of six blades, about three feet long, and six inches broad, which are placed obliquely in the axle-tree. On these ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... occupation of a grand seignior; hence it is that religion and government only serve him as subjects of conversation. The conversation, moreover, occurs between him and his equals, and a man may say what he pleases in good company. Moreover the social system turns on its own axis, like the sun, from time immemorial, through its own energy, and shall it be deranged by what is said in the drawing-room? In any event he does not control its motion and he is not responsible. Accordingly there is no uneasy undercurrent, no morose preoccupation in his mind. Carelessly ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis, its bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale's head while yet under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that malicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted himself, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... Lenses Form Images. Suppose we place an arrow, A, in front of a convex lens (Fig. 73). The ray AC, parallel to the principal axis, will pass through the lens and emerge as DE. The ray is always bent toward the thick portion of the lens, both at its entrance into the lens and its emergence from ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... my invention consisted in eliminating the highly complicated compressor and in injecting directly such a highly diffused fuel spray so that a quick first ignition could be depended upon. By means of rotating the air column around the cylinder axis, fresh air was constantly led along the fuel spray to achieve completely sootless burning-up.... In 1930 I sold my U.S.A. ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer

... and grooved and from 1-3/8 to 2 in. thick. The smaller thickness is sufficient. The exterior face of the staves should be turned concentric with the axis of the pipe and form a circle, so that the band will have ...
— The Water Supply of the El Paso and Southwestern Railway from Carrizozo to Santa Rosa, N. Mex. • J. L. Campbell

... we have sent, who has summoned his turtle to Paris. She sets out the day after to-morrow, escorted, to add gravity to the embassy, by George Selwyn. The stocks don't mind this journey of a rush, but draw in their horns every day. We can learn nothing of the Havannah, though the axis of which the whole treaty turns. We believe, for we have never seen them, that the last letters thence brought accounts of great loss, especially by the sickness. Colonel Burgoyne(243) has given a little fillip to the Spaniards, and shown them, that though they can take Portugal from ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... as possible it is desirable to replace the colored lines indicating the constructions, the axis, projections, etc., by differently punctuated lines made with India ink. However, if the use of colors be obligatory on the original design, one should trace the red lines with very thick vermilion or sienna, the yellow lines with gamboge, and the blue ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois

... of tubing to an angle of 45 degrees, cutting off roughly in the first instance and finishing up carefully with a file till the angle is exact. Solder to the end a piece of tin, and cut and file this to the precise shape of the elliptical end. Detach by heating, scribe a line along its longest axis, and attach it by a small countersunk screw to the end of ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... saw that it was revolving upon an axis that lay parallel to the surface of Pellucidar, so that during each revolution its entire surface was once exposed to the world below and once bathed in the heat of the great sun above. The little world had that which Pellucidar could not have—a ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... diligently considered the position of the earth and sun, and formed innumerable schemes, in which I changed their situation. I have sometimes turned aside the axis of the earth, and sometimes varied the ecliptick of the sun: but I have found it impossible to make a disposition, by which the world may be advantaged; what one region gains, another loses by an imaginable alteration, even ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... consult while I drank. "Why," she said, "you don't mean to say a little place like West Burton is marked on a map." This is the very antipodes of the ordinary provincial pride, which would have the world's axis project from the ground hard by the village pump. But pride of place is not, I think, a ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... that the church is retailing that wretched old myth which my Hebrew fathers borrowed of the barbarians. Noah? There was no such man. By the shifting of the earth's axis about 16,000 years ago a portion of the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... soul of the seer and nowhere else. It is a matter of constitutional psychism as to where the sense of clear vision will be located. Personally I find the sense to be located in the frontal coronal region of the brain about 150 to the right of the normal axis of vision, which may be regarded as the meridian of sight. Other instances are before me in which the sense is variously located in the back of the head, the nape of the neck, the pit of the stomach, the summit of the head, above and between the eyes, and in one case near the right ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial

... rotating furnace is one in which the axis is horizontal. It is much shorter than the inclined type, and the feeding and removal of the ore is effected by the opening of a retort lid door provided at the side of the furnace. Openings provided at each end of the furnace permit the passage of the flame through it, and the revolution of the ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... and orthodox Shint[o] commentators had learned science from the Dutch at Nagasaki, the stirring of the world mud by Izanagi's spear[7] was gravely asserted to be the cause of the diurnal revolution of the earth upon its axis, the point of the axis being still the jewel spear.[8] Onogoro-jima, or the Island of the Congealed Drop, was formerly at the north pole,[9] but subsequently removed to its present position. How this ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... the many marvellous phenomena of nature that mineral, as well as many vegetable and animal substances, on entering into a state of solidity, take upon themselves a definite form called a crystal. These crystals build themselves round an axis or axes with wonderful regularity, and it has been found, speaking broadly, that the same substance gives the same crystal, no matter how its character may be altered by colour or other means. Even when mixed with other crystallisable substances, the resulting ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin

... The *buds* are small and slender compared with those of the other magnolia trees and are covered with small silvery silky hairs. The *habit* of the tree is to form a straight axis of great height with a symmetrical mass of branches, producing a perfect monopodial crown. The tree is sometimes ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... may, perhaps, wish to model an apple, peach, or plum, to place in the hands of some mounted object, such as a monkey. To do this, you take a natural fruit, which oil, and push it half way (on its longest axis) into a bed of damped and hard-pressed sand banked up all round. At some little distance from the edges of the fruit stick two or three small pegs of wood (points downwards) about half-an-inch long, leaving a quarter-of-an-inch out of the sand. Over all this pour some plaster of Paris mixed with ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... feature in the vast view speaks of the old volcanic fires. Far to the northward, in Oregon, the icy volcanoes of Mount Pitt and the Three Sisters rise above the dark evergreen woods. Southward innumerable smaller craters and cones are distributed along the axis of the range and on each flank. Of these, Lassen's Butte is the highest, being nearly 11,000 feet above sea-level. Miles of its flanks are reeking and bubbling with hot springs, many of them so boisterous and sulphurous they seem over ready to become spouting geysers ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinates are used in this report. The first three digits refer to a point on an east- west axis, and the second three digits refer to a point on a north-south axis. The point so designated is the southwest corner of an area ...
— Project Trinity 1945-1946 • Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer

... line, A, which is in the direction of the major axis of the ellipse—that is, the longest distance across. The narrow part of the ellipse is ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... under a deluge of commonplaces his native incapacity, his total want of education, and a weakness of character which can only be expressed by the old word "weathercock." Be not uneasy: the weathercock had for its axis the beautiful Madame Beauvisage, Severine Grevin, the most remarkable woman ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... principle of a counterpoised float whose rising and falling motion, reduced to a tenth, by means of a system of toothed wheels, is transmitted to a pencil which moves in front of a vertical cylinder. This cylinder itself moves around its axis by means of a clockwork mechanism, and accomplishes one entire revolution every twenty-four hours. By this means is obtained a curve of the tide in which the times are taken for abscisses and the heights of the sea for ordinates. However little such marigraphs ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various



Words linked to "Axis" :   cervical vertebra, rachis, scheduled territories, bloc, alliance, odontoid process, coalition, x-axis, sterling area, alinement, stele, minor axis, line, z-axis, axial, stalk, spadix, sterling bloc, mechanism, axis of rotation, coordinate axis, major axis, optic axis, pivot, y-axis, principal axis, semiminor axis, rotor head, neck bone, axis vertebra, semimajor axis, stem, rotor shaft



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