Giving a previous narrative or explanation, as of the plot or personages of a play; introductory.

A nitrogenous phosphorized principle found in brain tissue. By decomposition it yields neurine, fatty acids, and other bodies.

One who takes the leading part in a drama; hence, one who takes lead in some great scene, enterprise, conflict, or the like.

An amorphous nitrogenous substance found in the spermatic fluid of salmon. It is soluble in water, which an alkaline reaction, and unites with acids and metallic bases.

Having male sexual organs while young, and female organs later in life.

Proterandrous.

A proposition; a maxim.

Of or pertaining to the protasis of an ancient play; introductory.

Of or pertaining to the Proteace/, an order of apetalous evergreen shrubs, mostly natives of the Cape of Good Hope or of Australia.

Of or pertaining to Proteus; characteristic of Proteus.

In a protean manner.

To cover or shield from danger or injury; to defend; to guard; to preserve in safety; as, a father protects his children.

By way of protection; in a protective manner.

The act of protecting, or the state of being protected; preservation from loss, injury, or annoyance; defense; shelter; as, the weak need protection.

The doctrine or policy of protectionists. See Protection, 4.

One who favors protection. See Protection, 4.

Affording protection; sheltering; defensive.

The quality or state of being protective.

One who, or that which, defends or shields from injury, evil, oppression, etc.; a defender; a guardian; a patron.

Of or pertaining to a protector; protectorial; as, protectoral power.

Government by a protector; -- applied especially to the government of England by Oliver Cromwell.

Same as Protectoral.

Having no protector; unprotected.

The office of a protector or regent; protectorate.

A woman who protects.

One under the care and protection of another, especially one receiving counseling and assistance in career development.

An older, imprecise term replaced by protein.

An order of aquatic amphibians having prominent external gills and four legs. It includes Proteus and Menobranchus (Necturus). Called also Proteoidea, and Proteida.

Changeable in form; resembling a Proteus, or an am/ba.

any polymer of an amino acid joined by peptide (amide) bonds. Most natural proteins have alpha-amino acids as the monomeric constituents. All classical enzymes are composed of protein, and control most of the biochemical transformations carrie dout in living cells. They may be soluble, as casein, albumins, and other globular proteins, or insoluble (e. g. "structural proteins"), as collagen or keratin. "albumin", an older term for protein, is now used primarily to refer to certain specific soluble globular proteins found in eggs or blood serum, e.g. bovine serum albumin, the main soluble protein in teh serum of cattle, used as an enzymatically inert protein in biochemical research.

Of or related to protein; albuminous; proteid.

Proteinaceuos.

A South Africa genus of Carnivora, allied to the hyenas, but smaller and having weaker jaws and teeth. It includes the aard-wolf.

To hold out; to stretch forth.

Extension.

A drawing out; extension.

Drawn out; extended.

The digestion or dissolving of proteid matter by proteolytic ferments.

Converting proteid or albuminous matter into soluble and diffusible products, as peptones.

One of a class of soluble products formed in the digestion of proteids with gastric and pancreatic juice, and also by the hydrolytic action of boiling dilute acids on proteids. Proteoses are divided into the two groups, the primary and secondary proteoses.

Having the stamens come to maturity before the pistil; -- opposed to proterogynous.

The condition of being proterandrous.

Having flowers appearing before the leaves; -- said of certain plants.

A suborder of serpents including those that have permanently erect grooved poison fangs, with ordinary teeth behind them in the jaws. It includes the cobras, the asps, and the sea snakes. Called also Proteroglyphia.

Having the pistil come to maturity before the stamens; protogynous; -- opposed to proterandrous.

An extinct genus of reptiles of the Permian period. Called also Protosaurus.

Peevishness; petulance.

A solemn declaration of opinion, commonly a formal objection against some act; especially, a formal and solemn declaration, in writing, of dissent from the proceedings of a legislative body; as, the protest of lords in Parliament.

Protestantism.

Making a protest; protesting.

Protestant.

The quality or state of being protestant, especially against the Roman Catholic Church; the principles or religion of the Protestants.

Like a Protestant; in conformity with Protestantism.

The act of making a protest; a public avowal; a solemn declaration, especially of dissent.

One who makes protestation; a protester.

One who protests; one who utters a solemn declaration.

By way of protesting.

A sea god in the service of Neptune who assumed different shapes at will. Hence, one who easily changes his appearance or principles.

A song in celebration of a marriage.

Same as Prothallus.

A credence table; -- so called by the Eastern or Greek Church.

Of or pertaining to prothesis; as, a prothetic apparatus.

Office of a prothonotary.

Of or pertaining to the prothorax.

The first or anterior segment of the thorax in insects. See Illusts. of Butterfly and Coleoptera.

Same as Prothyalosoma.

One of the Protista.

A provisional group in which are placed a number of low microscopic organisms of doubtful nature. Some are probably plants, others animals.

One of the Protista.

Pertaining to, or designating, architecture, in which the beginnings of the Doric style are supposed to be found.

Of or pertaining to the first canon, or that which contains the authorized collection of the books of Scripture; -- opposed to deutero-canonical.

Pertaining to, derived from, or designating, an organic acid which is obtained as a white crystalline substance from catechin, asafetida, oil of cloves, etc., and by distillation itself yields pyrocatechin.

Having a caudal fin extending around the end of the vertebral column, like that which is first formed in the embryo of fishes; diphycercal.

A genus of minute unicellular alg/ including the red snow plant (Protococcus nivalis).

To make or write protocols, or first draughts; to issue protocols.

One who draughts protocols.

The embryonic shell, or first chamber, of ammonites and other cephalopods.

A kind of granite or gneiss containing a silvery talcose mineral.

Same as Proterogynous.

A genus of fossil horses from the Lower Pliocene. They had three toes on each foot, the lateral ones being small.

The first martyr; the first who suffers, or is sacrificed, in any cause; -- applied esp. to Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

The second segment of one of the Gregarin/.

A finer form of metals, indicated by enhanced lines in their spark spectra (which are also observed in the spectra of some stars), obtained at the highest available laboratory temperatures (Lockyer); as protocalcium, protochromium, protocopper, protonickel, protosilicon, protostrontium, prototitanium, protovanadium.

Having the most primitive character; in the earliest form; as, a protomorphic layer of tissue.

The primary growth from the spore of a moss, usually consisting of branching confervoid filaments, on any part of which stem and leaf buds may be developed.

Same as Prothonotary.

A chief notary or clerk.

An organism whose nature is so difficult to determine that it might be referred to either the animal or the vegetable kingdom.

A protopope.

Any unicellular plant, or plant forming only a plasmodium, having reproduction only by fission, gemmation, or cell division.

Paleobotany.

An alkaloid found in opium in small quantities, and extracted as a white crystalline substance.

The viscid and more or less granular material of vegetable and animal cells, possessed of vital properties by which the processes of nutrition, secretion, and growth go forward; the so-called / physical basis of life;/ the original cell substance, cytoplasm, cytoblastema, bioplasm sarcode, etc.

Protoplasmic.

Of or pertaining to the first formation of living bodies.

A division of fresh-water rhizopods including those that have a soft body and delicate branched pseudopodia. The genus Gromia is one of the best-known.

First-formed.

The basal portion, or two proximal and more or less consolidated segments, of an appendage of a crustacean.

One of the clergy of first rank in the lower order of secular clergy; an archpriest; -- called also protopapas.

See Komtok.

A salt derived from a protoxide base.

A silicate formed with the lowest proportion of silicic acid, or having but one atom of silicon in the molecule.

One of the primitive segments, or metameres, of an animal.

That one of a series of sulphides of any element which has the lowest proportion of sulphur; a sulphide with but one atom of sulphur in the molecule.

A protosulphide.

Same as Monotremata.

Same as Malacopoda.

An original or model after which anything is copied; the pattern of anything to be engraved, or otherwise copied, cast, or the like; a primary form; exemplar; archetype.

One of the primitive masses, or segments, into which the mesoblast of the vertebrate embryo breaks up on either side of the anterior part of the notochord; a mesoblastic, or protovertebral, somite. See Illust. of Ectoderm.

Of or pertaining to the protovertebr/.

That one of a series of oxides having the lowest proportion of oxygen. See Proto-, 2 (b).

To combine with oxygen, as any elementary substance, in such proportion as to form a protoxide.

The lowest of the grand divisions of the animal kingdom.

Of or pertaining to the Protozoa. One of the Protozoa.

Of or pertaining to the Protozoa.

One of the Protozoa. A single zooid of a compound protozoan.

One of the primary, or first-formed, segments of an embryonic arthropod.

Same as Malacopoda.

Tedious continuance or delay.

Prolonged; continued.