Spine (Botany a sharp process)
in botany, a sharp process from the woody part of a plant. It differs from a prickle, which proceeds from the bark. A spine sometimes terminates a branch, h, and sometimes is axillary, growing at an angle formed by the branch or leaf with the stem. The wild apple and pear are armed with spines; the rose, bramble, gooseberry, etc., are armed with prickles. The term is applied in zoölogy to a stout, rigid, and pointed process of the integument of an animal, formed externally by the epidermis and internally of a portion of the cutis or corresponding structure.
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Spinel
in mineralogy: (1) The type species of a group of minerals called the spinel group, crystallizing in the isometric system, and being compounds of protoxides and sesquioxides with the typical formula ROR₂O₃. (2) A mineral ocurring in crystals of octahedral habit, and very rarely massive. Hardness, 8.0; sp. gr., 3.5-4.1; luster, vitreous to splendent, sometimes dull; color, many shades of red, also blue, green, yellow, brown, and black; sometimes nearly white, or colorless; transparent to opaque; fracture, conchoidal. Composition: When pure, alumina, 72.0; magnesia, 28.0=100, corresponding with the formula, MgO Al2O3; but the magnesia is often partly replaced by other protoxides, and the alumina by sesquioxides, giving rise to many varieties. Dana thus distinguishes them: (1) Ruby or magnesia-spinel; with sp. gr. 3.52-3.58; (a) spinel-ruby, deep red: (b) balas-ruby, rose-red; (c) rubicelle, yellow or orange-red; (d) almandine, violet. (2) Ceylonite, or iron-magnesia spinel = pleonaste, containing much iron; color, dark green to black. (3) Magnesia-lime-spinel; color, green. (4) Chlorospinel; color, grass-green, with the iron constituent as sesquioxide. (5) Picotite, containing over 7 per cent. of oxide of chromium.
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Spinet
. See Piano
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Spinet
in music, a musical stringed instrument resembling the harpsichord, and, like that instrument, now superseded by the pianoforte. Each note had but one string, which was struck by a quilled jack acted on by one of the finger keys. The strings were placed horizontally, and nearly at right angles to the keys; and the general outline of the instrument resembled that of a harp laid in a horizontal position, on which account the spinet, when first introduced, was called the couched harp.
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Spingarn
2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about race that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: ET 2026-07-22) JOEL ELIAS, an American educator and author, born in New York in 1875. He was educated at Columbia and Harvard and from 1899 to 1911 was successively tutor, adjunctprofessor, and professor of comparative literature at Columbia University. He took an active interest in politics as a Progressive Republican, was chairman of the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and in 1919 became a member of the board of directors of a New York publishing house. During the World War he was a major of infantry. He wrote: "A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance" (1899); "The New Criticism" (1911); "The New Hesperides and Other Poems" (1911); "Creative Criticism" (1917). He also edited "Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century (3 vols. 1908-1909); "Temple's Essays" (1909), etc.
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Spinning Sheet Metal
Sheets of silver, Britannia-metal, tin, and other malleable metals are, by motion and pressure, caused to flow or conform to a great variety of shapes. The process depends on the dexterity of the workman, the malleability of the metal, and the time given for the flow of its particles; for it must not be too hard pressed, or the sheet will fracture. Metals are spun in a lathe; a chuck or mould of the article to be made is fastened to the face-plate, and the disk of sheet metal is pressed against it by the fixed centre. An ordinary rest serves as a purchase for the operator to apply the requisite pressure with his pressing-tools and burnishers. Section chucks, consisting of a central core and surrounding sections, are employed when the nature of the work will not permit a solid chuck to be used. By means of these almost any description of vessel is easily moulded in sheet metal, when the core, being withdrawn, the remaining sections are taken out.
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Spinoza
spe-no'za (1632-1677), a Dutch philosopher. He was of Jewish descent. His parents fled from Portugal to escape persecution. He was born and educated at Amsterdam. He became noted for his views as a thinker in the field of philosophy. Though offered a professor's chair at Heidelberg, and later a pension by Louis XIV , he preferred to support himself by his trade of lens making. He lived a lonely, frugal, gentle life. In the history of philosophy he follows Descartes and precedes the German philosophers Fichte, Hegel, etc. His writings are credited with having exerted a peculiar influence on the thought of Goethe and Schiller. His theological views were pantheistic, that is to say, instead of denying the existence of God, he asserted that whatever is, is God.
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Spinoza
BARUCH, or BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, a Dutch philosopher; born in Amsterdam, Holland, November 24, 1632. He was trained in Talmudic and other Hebrew lore by Rabbi Morteira; acquired a knowledge of Latin from the C
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Spinoza (BARUCH the inherent cause)
BARUCH the inherent cause of the universe, is one absolutely infinite substance, of which all the several parts which we recognize are but finite expressions; that man, being but a part of this greater whole, has neither a separate existence nor a self-determining will; but that he can, by means of knowledge and love, so far control his passions as to enter into the joy which springs from this idea of an all-embracing God. He died February 21, 1677.
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Spiraea
spi-re'a, a genus of plants bebelonging to the rose family. There are about fifty species found chiefly in the north temperate zone. Various species of the United States are known as meadow-sweet, hard hack, queen of the meadows, goat's beard, steeple bush, bridal wreath, nine-bark, etc. The flowers occur usually in ornamental clusters or panicles, white, pink, or rose colored. Several species are valued as dooryard shrubs.
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