|
It is not only important, but, in a degree necessary, that the people of this country, should have an American Dictionary of the English language; for, although the body of the language is the same as in England, and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness, yet some differences must exist. Language is the expression of ideas; and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language. |
ORGAN'IC,
Of or pertaining to an organ or its functions, or to objects
composed of organs; consisting of organs, or containing them; as, the
organic structure of animals and plants; exhibiting characters
peculiar to living organisms; as, organic bodies,
organic life, organic remains. Cf.
Inorganic.
Produced by the organs; as, organic
pleasure.
[R.] Instrumental; acting as instruments of
nature or of art to a certain destined function or end.
[R.]
Those organic arts which enable men to discourse and write perspicuously. Milton. Forming a whole composed of organs. Hence:
Of or pertaining to a system of organs; inherent in, or resulting
from, a certain organization; as, an organic government; his
love of truth was not inculcated, but organic.
Pertaining to, or denoting, any one of the
large series of substances which, in nature or origin, are connected
with vital processes, and include many substances of artificial
production which may or may not occur in animals or plants; --
contrasted with inorganic.
* The principles of organic and inorganic chemistry are identical; but the enormous number and the completeness of related series of organic compounds, together with their remarkable facility of exchange and substitution, offer an illustration of chemical reaction and homology not to be paralleled in inorganic chemistry. Organic analysis (Chem.), the analysis of organic compounds, concerned chiefly with the determination of carbon as carbon dioxide, hydrogen as water, oxygen as the difference between the sum of the others and 100 per cent, and nitrogen as free nitrogen, ammonia, or nitric oxide; -- formerly called ultimate analysis, in distinction from proximate analysis. -- Organic chemistry. See under Chemistry. -- Organic compounds. (Chem.) See Carbon compounds, under Carbon. -- Organic description of a curve (Geom.), the description of a curve on a plane by means of instruments. Brande *** C. -- Organic disease (Med.), a disease attended with morbid changes in the structure of the organs of the body or in the composition of its fluids] -- opposed to functional disease. -- Organic electricity. See under Electricity. -- Organic law or laws, a law or system of laws, or declaration of principles fundamental to the existence and organization of a political or other association; a constitution. -- Organic stricture (Med.), a contraction of one of the natural passages of the body produced by structural changes in its walls, as distinguished from a spasmodic stricture, which is due to muscular contraction. | ||||||||