Chapter Electro-tint to Elementary of E by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

Elegiac
(E*le"gi*ac) a. [L. elegiacus, Gr. : cf. F. élégiaque. See Elegy.]

1. Belonging to elegy, or written in elegiacs; plaintive; expressing sorrow or lamentation; as, an elegiac lay; elegiac strains.

Elegiac griefs, and songs of love.

Mrs. Browning.

2. Used in elegies; as, elegiac verse; the elegiac distich or couplet, consisting of a dactylic hexameter and pentameter.

Elegiac
(E*le"gi*ac) n. Elegiac verse.

Elegiacal
(El`e*gi"a*cal) a. Elegiac.

Elegiast
(E*le"gi*ast) n. One who composes elegies. Goldsmith.

Elegiographer
(El`e*gi*og"ra*pher) n. [Gr. an elegy + -graph + -er.] An elegist. [Obs.]

Elegist
(El"e*gist) n. A write of elegies. T. Warton.

Elegit
(||E*le"git) n. [L., he has chosen, fr. eligere to choose. See Elect.] (Law) A judicial writ of execution, by which a defendant's goods are appraised and delivered to the plaintiff, and, if not sufficient to satisfy the debt, all of his lands are delivered, to be held till the debt is paid by the rents and profits, or until the defendant's interest has expired.

Elegize
(El"e*gize) v. t. To lament in an elegy; to celebrate in elegiac verse; to bewail. Carlyle.

Elegy
(El"e*gy) n.; pl. Elegies [L. elegia, Gr. fem. sing. fr. elegiac, fr. a song of mourning.] A mournful or plaintive poem; a funereal song; a poem of lamentation. Shak.

Eleidin
(E*le"i*din) n. (Biol.) Lifeless matter deposited in the form of minute granules within the protoplasm of living cells.

Element
(El"e*ment) n. [F. élément, L. elementum.]

1. One of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based.

2. One of the ultimate, undecomposable constituents of any kind of matter. Specifically: (Chem.) A substance which cannot be decomposed into different kinds of matter by any means at present employed; as, the elements of water are oxygen and hydrogen.

The elements are naturally classified in several families or groups, as the group of the alkaline elements, the halogen group, and the like. They are roughly divided into two great classes, the metals, as sodium, calcium, etc., which form basic compounds, and the nonmetals or metalloids, as oxygen, sulphur, chlorine, which form acid compounds; but the distinction is only relative, and some, as arsenic, tin, aluminium, etc., form both acid and basic compounds. The essential fact regarding every element is its relative atomic weight or equivalent. When the elements are tabulated in the order of their ascending atomic weights, the arrangement constitutes the series of the Periodic law of Mendelejeff. See Periodic law, under Periodic. This Periodic law enables us to predict the qualities of unknown elements. The number of elements known is about seventy-five, but the gaps in the Periodic law indicate the possibility of many more. Many of the elements with which we are familiar, as hydrogen, carbon, iron, gold, etc., have been recognized, by means of spectrum analysis, in the sun and the fixed stars. From certain evidence (as that afforded by the Periodic law, spectrum analysis, etc.) it appears that the chemical elements probably may not be simple bodies, but only very stable compounds of some simpler body or bodies. In formulas, the elements are designated by abbreviations of their names in Latin or New Latin.