- A blockhead; a dunce; a numskull. - A spherical mass of iron, with a long handle, used to
heat tar. - An upright piece of round timber, in a whaleboat, over
which a turn of the line is taken when it is running out too fast. - A very large marine turtle (Thalassochelys caretta, /
caouana), common in the warmer parts of the Atlantic Ocean, from Brazil
to Cape Cod; -- called also logger-headed turtle. - An American shrike (Lanius Ludovicianus), similar to
the butcher bird, but smaller. See Shrike.
- A genus of bright-colored Siphonophora found floating in
the warmer parts of the ocean. The individuals are round and
disk-shaped, with a large zooid in the center of the under side,
surrounded by smaller nutritive and reproductive zooids, and by slender
dactylozooids near the margin. The disk contains a central float, or
pneumatocyst.
- Perfume base - Perfume ingredient - A substance of the consistence of wax, found floating in
the Indian Ocean and other parts of the tropics, and also as a morbid
secretion in the intestines of the sperm whale (Physeter
macrocephalus), which is believed to be in all cases its true origin.
In color it is white, ash-gray, yellow, or black, and often variegated
like marble. The floating masses are sometimes from sixty to two
hundred and twenty-five pounds in weight. It is wholly volatilized as a
white vapor at 212¡ Fahrenheit, and is highly valued in perfumery.