A device contained within an electrical circuit designed to interrupt the circuit when the current exceeds a preset value; it is sometimes called a contact breaker. Its function is to prevent fire or damage to the circuit or the devices on the circuit which could be caused by excess current, such as that caused by a short-circuit. It differs from a fuse in not having a conducting element which melts (see 2nd fuse, n.). Circuit breakers are designed to be easily reset, i. e. to reclose the circuit after it has been opened by the circuit breaker; this is usually accomplished by simply moving a switch back and forth. They are commonly used in buildings to protect individual electrical lines, and are often contained in groups within a box called a circuit breaker panel, which divides the current from a main electrical line into multiple circuits each protected by a separate circuit breaker. Less commonly they may be found on individual devices.
A circuiter.
One who travels a circuit, as a circuit judge.
The act of going round; circumlocution.
Going round in a circuit; roundabout; indirect; as, a circuitous road; a circuitous manner of accomplishing an end.
A going round in a circle; a course not direct; a roundabout way of proceeding.
That may be circulated.
knit on a circular form so as to have no seams; -- said of stockings.
The quality or state of being circular; a circular form.
In a circular manner.
Circular; illogical.
To cause to pass from place to place, or from person to person; to spread; as, to circulate a report; to circulate bills of credit.
moving or flowing in a circuit and returning to the same point; as, steam circulating through the pipes; the circulating thyroid hormones.
The act of moving in a circle, or in a course which brings the moving body to the place where its motion began.
Promoting circulation; circulating.
One who, or that which, circulates.
Travelling from house to house or from town to town; itinerant.
A chemical vessel consisting of two portions unequally exposed to the heat of the fire, and with connecting pipes or passages, through which the fluid rises from the overheated portion, and descends from the relatively colder, maintaining a circulation.
A circlet.
Proceeding in a circle; circular.
To agitate on all sides.
A roundabout or indirect course; indirectness.
The act of surrounding or encompassing.
Surrounding; inclosing or being on all sides; encompassing.
To walk round about.
A roundabout or indirect way.
The center of a circle that circumscribes a triangle.
To cut off the prepuce of foreskin of, in the case of males, and the internal labia of, in the case of females.
One who performs circumcision.
The act of cutting off the prepuce or foreskin of males, or the internal labia of females.
Act of inclosing on all sides.
The act of running about; also, rambling language.
Denudation around or in the neighborhood of an object.
To declare elapsed, as the time allowed for introducing evidence.
A leading about; circumlocution.
Surrounding the esophagus; -- in (Zool.) said of the nerve commissures and ganglia of arthropods and mollusks.
Circumesophagal.
To bear or carry round.
To include in a circular space; to bound.
Pertaining to the circumference; encompassing; encircling; circuitous.
So as to surround or encircle.
Blowing around.
To bend around.
See Circumflexion.
To mark or pronounce with a circumflex.
The act of bending, or causing to assume a curved form.
A flowing round on all sides; an inclosing with a fluid.
Flowing round; surrounding in the manner of a fluid.
Going about or abroad; walking or wandering from house to house.
Shining around or about.
To pour round; to spread round.
Capable of being poured or spread round.
The act of pouring or spreading round; the state of being spread round.
The act or process of carrying about.
To roll or turn round; to cause to perform a rotary or circular motion.
The act of turning, rolling, or whirling round.
Moving in a circle; turning round.
To circumgyrate.
The reciprocal existence in each other of the three persons of the Trinity.
Condition of being circumjacent, or of bordering on every side.
Lying round; bordering on every side.
One of the moons or satellites of the planet Jupiter.
Adjointing the shore.
The use of many words to express an idea that might be expressed by few; indirect or roundabout language; a periphrase.
Relating to, or consisting of, circumlocutions; periphrastic; circuitous.
Characterised by circumlocution; periphrastic.
About, or near, the meridian.
To encompass with a wall.
Capable of being sailed round.
To sail completely round.
The act of circumnavigating, or sailing round.
One who sails round.
To pass through the stages of circumnutation.
The successive bowing or bending in different directions of the growing tip of the stems of many plants, especially seen in climbing plants.
About the pole; -- applied to stars that revolve around the pole without setting; as, circumpolar stars.
The act of placing in a circle, or round about, or the state of being so placed.
To rotate about.
The act of rolling or revolving round, as a wheel; circumvolution; the state of being whirled round.
turning, rolling, or whirling round.
Dehiscing or opening by a transverse fissure extending around (a capsule or pod). See Illust. of Pyxidium.
Capable of being circumscribed.
One who, or that which, circumscribes.
Capable of being circumscribed or limited by bounds.
An inscription written around anything.
Circumscribing or tending to circumscribe; marcing the limits or form of.
In a limited manner.
In a literal, limited, or narrow manner.
Attentive to all the circumstances of a case or the probable consequences of an action; cautious; prudent; wary.
Attention to all the facts and circumstances of a case; caution; watchfulness.
Looking around every way; cautious; careful of consequences; watchful of danger.
Circumspectly.
In a circumspect manner; cautiously; warily.
Vigilance in guarding against evil from every quarter; caution.
That which attends, or relates to, or in some way affects, a fact or event; an attendant thing or state of things.
To place in a particular situation; to supply relative incidents.
Placed in a particular position or condition; situated.
Standing or placed around; surrounding.
Capable of being circumstantiated.
Something incidental to the main subject, but of less importance; opposed to an essential; -- generally in the plural; as, the circumstantials of religion.
The state, characteristic, or quality of being circumstantial; particularity or minuteness of detail.
In respect to circumstances; not essentially; accidentally.
Being or dwelling around the earth.
To flow round, as waves.
Surrounded with a wall; inclosed with a rampart.
The act of surrounding with a wall or rampart. A line of field works made around a besieged place and the besieging army, to protect the camp of the besiegers against the attack of an enemy from without.
The act of carrying anything around, or the state of being so carried.
To gain advantage over by arts, stratagem, or deception; to decieve; to delude; to get around.
The act of prevailing over another by arts, address, or fraud; deception; fraud; imposture; delusion.
Tending to circumvent; deceiving by artifices; deluding.
One who circumvents; one who gains his purpose by cunning.
To cover round, as with a garment; to invest.
Flying around.
The act of flying round.
To roll round; to revolve.
the candlewood of Mexico and couthwestern California (Idria columnaris or Fouquieria columnaris), having tall columnar stems and bearing honey-scented creamy yellow flowers; -- called also the boojum tree.
Having cirri along the margin of a part or organ.
See Cirriferous.
Same as Cirrose.
A disease of the liver in which it usually becomes smaller in size and more dense and fibrous in consistence; hence sometimes applied to similar changes in other organs, caused by increase in the fibrous framework and decrease in the proper substance of the organ.
Pertaining to, caused by, or affected with, cirrhosis; as, cirrhotic degeneration; a cirrhotic liver.
See Cirrose.