epicycle (episikl)

[ upon or around another circle, as one of a num IMG:content-0602.png:[blocks in formation] The same phænomena in astronomy are satisfied by the received astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles . Bacon , Advancement of Learning, ii. 179. Tycho hath feigned I know not how many subdivisions of epicycles in epicycles , ., to calculate and expre the moon's motion. Burton , Anat. of Mel., p. 297. Deferent of the epicycle. See deferent. epicyclic (ep-i-sik'lik), a. [ epicycle + -ic.] Of or pertaining to an epicycle. - Epicyclic train, in mech ., any train of gearing the axes of the wheels of which revolve around a common center. The wheel at one end of such a train, if not those at both ends, is always concentric with the revolving frame. epidermic +-ic.] I. a. Common to or affecting a whole people or a great number in a community; generally diffused and prevalent. A disease is said to be epidemic in a community when it appears in a great number of cases at the same time in that locality, but is not permanently prevalent there. In the latter case it is said to be endemic. Whatever be the cause of this epidemic folly, it would be unjust to ascribe it to the freedom of the pre . War burton , Divine Legation, Ded. to Freethinkers (1738). A dread of mad dogs is the epidemic terror which now prevails. Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, lxix. The hint becomes the more significant from the marked similarity of the cholera-track of the present year to that twelvemonth's interval, by a regular invasion of epidemic which has on former occasions been followed, after a cholera. Saturday Rev., Oct. 21, 1865. II. n. 1. A temporary prevalence of a disease throughout a community: as, an epidemic