islet ( s silent)

[Eng. isle (1); dim in. suff. -et.] 1. Lit.: A little isle or island. "An islet upon the coast of Scotland, in the German sea."-Drayton: Polyolbion, s. 24. (Note.) 2. Fig .: A spot within another of a different hue, as on the wing of a butterfly, or the blo om of a plant. (Tennyson: Enid , 1,324.) -Ism, suff . & s. [Gr.-ismos=condition, act; Lat. -ismus : Fr.- is me .] A. As . suff .: A common suffix in English, meaning doctrine, theory, principle, system, or practice of the abstract idea of the word to which it is suffixed; as, spiritualism, monotheism, ., also an idiom peculiar to the country named, as Gallicism, Irishism. B. As subst.: A doctrine or theory, especially one of a pretentious or absurd character. "Compared with any of the isms current."- Carlyle: Past and Present, bk. ii., ch. xv. Iş-ma-ě-lites, Iş-mā-e-li-ans, s . pl . [From an Ishmael (see def.), and Eng., ., pl. suff. -ites , -ians .] Hist .: A branch of the Shiites. Djafar Madeck, the sixth Imam from Ali, having lost his elder son Ismael, appointed his younger son Mousa to be his succe or. A schism followed among the Shiites, one party contending that the Imamship should have descended to the posterity of Ismael. The Fatimide dynasty were Is mae lite, so were the A a ins (q. v.). Is-nar-di-a, s . [Named after Antoine Dante Isnard, member of the Academy of Sciences.] Bot.: A genus of Onagracese, tribe Ju ieee. Is nardia palustris is called, by Joseph Hooker, Lud wigia palustris . The root of I. altern i folia is said to be emetic. I-sō-, pref. [Gr. isos equal to, the same as.] 1. Gen.: Equal to. 2. Bot . ( of an organ ): Equal in the number of its divisions or parts to another one. [IsoSTEMONOUS.] i-sō-ăm-ý-lēne, s. [Eng. iso ( meric ), and amy lene.] Chem.: A mobile, colorle oil of peculiar odor, obtained by distilling i so amylic alcohol with zinc chloride. It has a specific gravity of 663 at 0°, and boils at 35°. It is readily decomposed by an acid, even in the cold, hydrochloric acid producing i so amylic chloride, and hydriodic acid i so amylic iodide.