Emily Dickinson Lexicon

EC-CEN'TRIC, n.

1. A circle not having the same center as another. Bacon.
2. That which is irregular or anomalous. Hammond.

EC-CEN-TRIC'I-TY, n.

1. Deviation from a center.
2. The state of having a center different from that of another circle. Johnson.
3. In astronomy, the distance of the center of a planet's orbit from the center of the sun; that is, the distance between the center of an ellipsis and its focus. Encyc.
4. Departure or deviation from that which is stated, regular or usual; as, the eccentricity of a man's genius or conduct.
5. Excursions from the proper sphere. Wotton.

EC-CHY-MO'SIS, n. [Gr. εκχυμωσις.]

In medicine, an appearance of livid spots on the skin, occasioned by extravasated blood. Wiseman.

EC-CLE'SI-ARCH, n. [Gr. εκκλησια and αρχη.]

A ruler of the church.

EC-CLE-SI-AS'TES, n. [Gr.]

A canonical book of the Old Testament.

EC-CLE-SI-AS'TIC, or EC-CLE-SI-AS'TIC-AL, a. [L.; Gr. εκκλησιαστικος, from εκκλησια, an assembly or meeting, whence a church, from εκκακεω, to call forth or convoke; εκ and κελεω, to call.]

Pertaining or relating to the church; as, ecclesiastical discipline or government; ecclesiastical affairs, history or polity; ecclesiastical courts. Ecclesiastical State, is the body of the clergy.

EC-CLE-SI-AS'TIC, n.

A person in orders, or consecrated to the service of the church and the ministry of religion.

EC-CLE-SI-AS'TIC-AL-LY, adv.

In an ecclesiastical manner.

EC-CLE-SI-AS'TI-CUS, n.

A book of the Apocrypha.

EC-CO-PROT'IC, a. [Gr. εκ, εξ, out or from, and κοπρος, stercus.]

Having the quality of promoting alvine discharges; laxative; loosening; gently cathartic. Coxe. Encyc.

EC-CO-PROT'IC, n.

A medicine which purges gently, or which tends to promote evacuations by stool; a mild cathartic. Coxe. Encyc.

ECH-E-LON', n. [French, from echelle, a ladder, a scale.]

In military tactics, the position of an army in the form of steps, or with one division more advanced than another. Wellington.

E-CHID'NA, n.

A genus of ant-eaters found in New Holland. They are monotrematous edentate mammals, nearly allied to the duck-billed animal.

ECH'I-NATE, or ECH'I-NA-TED, a. [L. echinus, a hedgehog.]

Set with prickles; prickly, like a hedgehog; having sharp points; bristles; as, an echinated pericarp. Martyn. Echinated pyrites, in mineralogy. Woodward.

ECH'IN-ITE, n. [See Echinus.]

A fossil found in chalk pits, called centronia; petrified shell set with prickles or points; a calcarious petrifaction of the echinus or sea hedgehog. Encyc. Ure.

ECH-IN'O-DERM, n.

A marine animal of the class Echinodermata, frequently covered with spines.

ECH-I'NUS, n. [L. from Gr. εχινος.]

1. A hedgehog.
2. A shellfish set with prickles or spines. The Echinus, in natural history, forms a genus of Mollusca. The body is roundish, covered with a bony crust, and often beset with movable prickles. There are several species, and some of them eatable. Encyc.
3. With botanists, a prickly head or top of a plant; an echinated pericarp.
4. In architecture, a member or ornament near the bottom of Ionic, Corinthian or Composite capitals, so named from its roughness, resembling in some measure, the spiny coat of a hedgehog. Johnson. Encyc.

ECH'O, n. [L. echo; Gr. ηχω, from ηχος, sound, ηχεω, to sound.]

1. A sound reflected or reverberated from a solid body; sound returned; repercussion of sound; as, an echo from a distant hill. The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Pope.
2. In fabulous history, a nymph, the daughter of the Air and Tellus, who pined into a sound, for love of Narcissus. Lempriere. Johnson.
3. In architecture, a vault or arch for redoubling sounds. Encyc.

ECH'O, v.i.

1. To resound; to reflect sound. The hall echoed with acclamations.
2. To be sounded back; as, echoing noise. Blackmore.

ECH'O, v.t.

To reverberate or send back sound; to return what has been uttered. Those peals are echoed by the Trojan throng. Dryden.

ECH'O-ED, pp.

Reverberated, as sound.

ECH'O-ING, ppr.

Sending back sound; as, echoing hills.

ECH'O-LESS, a.

Without echo.

E-CHOM'E-TER, n. [Gr. ηχος, sound, and μετρον, measure.]

Among musicians, a scale or rule, with several lines thereon, serving to measure the duration of sounds, and to find their intervals and ratios. Encyc.

E-CHOM'E-TRY, n.

1. The art or act of measuring the duration of sounds.
2. The art of constructing vaults to produce echoes.