magnitude

[Lat. magnitudo, from magnus great.] I. Ordinary Language : 1. The comparative size, bulk, extent, quantity, or amount of anything that may be measured; size. 2. Anything that can be measured; any quantity that can be expre ed in terms of a quantity of the same kind taken as a unit. [II.2.] *3. Greatne , with reference to a moral or intellectual standard. "He with plain heroic magnitude of mind,. Their armories and magazines contemns." Milton : Samson Agonistes , 1,279. 4. Importance, consequence, weight. "We commonly find in the ambitious man a superiority of parts, in some measure proportioned to the magni tude of his designs."- Bp . Horsley , vol. i., ser. 4. II. Technically : 1. Astron.: A term applied to the apparent size of stars viewed from the earth. There are six magnitudes. [STAR.] 2. Geom .: This term was originally applied to signify the space occupied by a body. As thus used, it applied only to those portions of space which po e ed the three attributes of extension-length, breadth, and thickne , or height. By extension of meaning, it has come to signify anything that can be increased, diminished, and measured. Thus, a line or a surface, an angle or a number, are magnitudes. Time and weight are magnitudes; and, in general, anything of which greater or le can be predicated is a magnitude. 3. Physics: The same as EXTENSION (q. v.). Apparent magnitude of an object: Optics: The angle which any object subtends at the eye of an observer. If OB be the object, and E the situation of the ob server's eye, then the apparent magnitude of the former is the angle E-i.e., E 0 B O E B, formed by two visual rays drawn from the center of the pupil to the extremities of the object. *măg-ni-ŭm, 8. [MAGNESIUM.] Chem.: Davy's name for magnesium. măg-nô-chrō-mite, s. [Eng. magn(esia); o connective, and chromite ; Ger. magnochromit . Min .: A variety of chromite (q. v.), containing a large percentage of magnesia. Physical characters the same as chromite, excepting in the want of luster and low density. From an analysis of a mixture of the mineral and its matrix, Websky deduces the following composition: Alumina, 29.92; chromic acid, 4078; protoxide of iron, 15:30; mag nes a, 14:00; which agrees with the formula, 4(Al2O3,Cr2O3), (3FeO, 5MgO). Found in rounded grains in a green matrix at Grochau, Silesia. măg-nō-fěr-rite, s . [MAGNESIOFERRITE.] măg-nō-11-ạ, s . [Named after Pierre Magnol (1638-1715), profe or of medicine at Montpellier, and author of several botanical works.] Bot .: The typical genus of the tribe Magnolice and the order Magnoliacese. Sepals three, deciduous; petals, six to nine; stamens and pistils many; carpels compacted in spikes or cones; seeds baccate, somewhat cordate, pendulous, with a long white umbilical thread. The species are trees or shrubs, with alternate leaves and large, terminal, odoriferous flowers. They are found in North America and Asia. Magnolia grandiflora , the Great-flowered Magnolia, or Laurel Bay, is a fine evergreen tree, seventy feet high in America, and from twenty to thirty in foreign gardens. The species have large, beautiful, fragrant flowers. Those of M. conspicua are snow-white, and those of those of M. tripetala produce sickne and head M. pumila brownish-green. De Candolle says that ache. Barton reports that M. glauca , the Dwarf Sa afras, or Beaver-tree, produces paroxysms of fever. The bark is intensely bitter, but has in it no tannin or gallic acid; it has the properties of Cinchona. Its"cones" are employed as a remedy in cases of chronic rheumatism. Those of M. yulan magpie are similarly used in China. The "cones" of M. frazeri , called also M. auriculata , and M. acumi nat a , called, in the United States, Cucumber-trees are infused in brandy or whisky, and given in intermittent fevers and rheumatic affections. M. excels a furnishes a valuable timber of fine texture, first greenish, then yellow. "Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blo oms." Long fellow: Evangeline , ii. 2. măg-nō-11-ā-çe-æ, s. [Mod. Lat. magnoli (a); Lat. fem. pl. adj. suff.- aceæ .] Bot.: Magnoliads; an order of hypogynous exogens, alliance Ranales. It consists of trees or shrubs, having the scales of the leaf-bud face to face or rolled up; alternate, sometimes dotted, leaves, distinctly articulated with the stem, with deciduous stipules; flowers generally hermaphrodite, strongly odoriferous; sepals generally three to six; petals three or more; stamens indefinite, hypogynous; carpels several, on a torus above the stamens; one-celled, one or more seeded. Fruit dry or succulent, dehiscent or indehiscent, sometimes collected upon a cone upon a lengthened axis; seeds one or more in each carpel of the fruit. They are found chiefly in this country, whence they wander to Japan, China, and India. Known genera, eleven; species, sixty-five. Most have a bitter, tonic taste. The order is divided into two tribes, Magnoliese and Winterese (q. v.).