DEFILE

In Fortification, a narrow way, through which troops can pa only \njile, or a small number abreast. DEFIMTE PROPORTIONALS, hi Chemistry. See Atomic Theory and Equivalents. DEFINITION (Lat.), literally laying down a boundary, signifies, in Logic, an expre ion which explains any term so as to separate it from every thing else, as a boundary separates fields. By the schoolmen definitions are divided into nominal and real, according to the object accomplithed by them, whether to explain merely the meaning of the word or the nature of the thing; and, on the other hand, they are divided into accidental, physical, and logical, according to the means employed by each for accomplishing their respective objects, whether it be the enumeration of attributes, or of the physical or the metaphysical parts of the e ence. (Whately's Logic, pp. 141-2.) DEFLAGRATION (Lat. deflagro, / burn.) A chemical term applied to sudden and rapid combustion: when a mixture of charcoal and nitre is thrown into a red hot crucible it burns with a kind of explosion, or deflagrates. DEFLECTION [s. 336]