quadrate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A square or cube.
2. n. An approximately square or cubic area, space, or object.
3. n. Zoology A bone or cartilaginous structure of the skull, joining the upper and lower jaws in birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians.
4. adj. Having four sides and four angles; square or rectangular.
5. adj. Zoology Of or being the quadrate bone or cartilage.
6. v. Archaic To correspond; agree.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Having four equal and parallel sides; square; arranged in a square; four-sided.
2. Square by being the product of a number multiplied into itself.
3. Square, as typifying justice according to the Pythagoreans; well-balanced.
4. Fitted; suited; applicable.
5. In heraldry, of square form, or having square corners: thus, a cross quadrate in the center has four rectangular projections in its reëntrant angles. Also quarter-angled.
6. The quadratus lumborum, or square muscle of the loins, lying on each side of the lumbar region, between the lower ribs and the pelvis.
7. The square muscle of the chin, which draws down the lower lip: commonly called depressor labii inferioris.
8. The quadratus nictitantis, one of the two muscles (the other being the pyramidal) on the back of the eyeball of birds, etc., subserving the movements of the nictitating membrane, or third eyelid. See third cut under eye.
9. n. A plane figure with four equal sides and four equal angles; a square.
10. n. In astrology, an aspect of two heavenly bodies in which they are distant from each other ninety degrees, or the quarter of a circle; quartile.
11. n. In zoology and anatomy: The os quadratum, or quadrate bone (see I.); the os pedicellatum, or pedicellate bone; the suspensorium, or suspender bone of the mandible, or that one which is in connection with the lower jaw, in vertebrates below mammals. Also called by Owen and others the tympanic bone, and considered to represent that bone of a mammal; by most zoologists now identified with the malleus or greater part of the malleus of Mammalia, formed about the proximal extremity of the Meckelian cartilage. In birds and reptiles the quadrate is a remarkably distinct bone, generally shaped something like an anvil or a molar tooth, with normally four separate movable articulations — with the squamosal above, the mandible below, the pterygoid internally, and the quadratojugal externally. Such vertebrates are hence called Quadratifera. (See cuts under Gallinæ, and quadrate, a.) Below reptiles the quadrate or its equivalent assumes other characters, and its homologies are then disputed; so the bone which has at any rate the same function, that of suspending the lower jaw to the skull, is usually called by another name. See epitympanic and hyomandibular, and cuts under hyoid and palatoquadrate. See also cuts under Python, poison-fang, Crotalus Petromyzon, teleost, palatoquadrate, and acrodont.
12. n. Any quadrate muscle.
13. n. In musical notation: Same as natural, ♮: so called because derived from B quadratum (which see, under B).
14. n. Same as breve, 1.
15. To square; adjust; trim, as a gun on its carriage.
16. To divide into four equal parts: quarter.
17. To square; fit; suit; agree: followed by with.
18. n. A quarter; a quadrant.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Having four equal sides, the opposite sides parallel, and four right angles; square.
2. adj. Produced by multiplying a number by itself; square.
3. adj. archaic Square; even; balanced; equal; exact.
4. adj. archaic Squared; suited; correspondent.
5. n. geometry A plane surface with four equal sides and four right angles; a square; hence, figuratively, anything having the outline of a square.
6. n. astrology An aspect of the heavenly bodies in which they are distant from each other 90°, or the quarter of a circle; quartile.
7. n. anatomy The quadrate bone.
8. v. archaic, transitive To adjust (a gun) on its carriage.
9. v. archaic, transitive To train (a gun) for horizontal firing.
10. v. archaic, transitive, intransitive To square (in various senses).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Having four equal sides, the opposite sides parallel, and four right angles; square.
2. adj. Produced by multiplying a number by itself; square.
3. adj. Archaic Square; even; balanced; equal; exact.
4. adj. Archaic Squared; suited; correspondent.
5. n. (Geom.) A plane surface with four equal sides and four right angles; a square; hence, figuratively, anything having the outline of a square.
6. n. (Astrol.) An aspect of the heavenly bodies in which they are distant from each other 90°, or the quarter of a circle; quartile. See the Note under Aspect, 6.
7. n. (Anat.) The quadrate bone.
8. v. Archaic To square; to agree; to suit; to correspond; -- followed by with.
9. v. To adjust (a gun) on its carriage; also, to train (a gun) for horizontal firing.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a cubelike object
2. adj. having four sides and four angles
3. n. a square-shaped object