<HEAD><TITLE>DICTIONARY: ant bear - antennae</TITLE></HEAD>
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<A NAME="antbear">
<B>ant bear,</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a large South American anteater having long front claws, a very slender head, a shaggy, gray coat marked with a black band on the chest, and a large, bushy tail; great anteater. <DD><B> 2. </B><B>=aardvark.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="antbird">
<B>ant bird,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> any one of several varieties of birds which feed mainly on ants, especially one of a family of small birds of South America. </DL>
<A NAME="antcattle">
<B>ant cattle,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> aphids which are kept and tended by ants for the sake of their honeydew. </DL>
<A NAME="antcow">
<B>ant cow,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> an aphid from which ants obtain honeydew. </DL>
<A NAME="ante">
<B>ante, </B>noun, verb, <B>-ted</B> or <B>-teed,</B> <B>-teing.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> <B>1. </B>a stake in the game of poker that each player must put up before receiving a hand or drawing new cards. <DD><B> 2. </B>(U.S. Slang.) a sum of money needed, set aside or paid. <BR> <I>Ex. Congress decided to increase the ante for pollution control.</I> <DD><I>v.t. </I> (Informal.) <B>1. </B>to put (one's stake) into the pool in poker. <DD><B> 2. </B>to pay (one's share). <BR><I>expr. <B>ante up,</B> (Informal.) <DD><B> a. </B>to put in one's ante in poker. </I> <I>Ex. Ante up! ante up, boys--friends I mean--don't back out! (J. J. Hooper).</I> <DD><B> b. </B>to pay one's share. <BR> <I>Ex. Death . . ; and I have been pardners many a time, an' when he passes the word, I'll ante up with a smile (Horace Vachell).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="ante">
<B>ante-,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (prefix.) <DD><B> 1. </B>before. <BR> <I>Ex. Antedate = to date before. Antenatal = before birth.</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>in front of. <BR> <I>Ex. Anteroom = the room in front (of another).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="anteater">
<B>anteater, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>an animal with a long, sticky tongue, that eats ants and termites, such as the ant bear (great anteater) and the tamandua. Anteaters have no teeth but use their very long claws to dig into ant hills. They have long, slender heads and snouts. Their threadlike tongues are thrust into the nests of ants and then pulled back into the mouth covered with ants. <DD><B> 2. </B>any of the pangolins (scaly anteaters). <DD><B> 3. </B><B>=echidna.</B> <DD><B> 4. </B><B>=aardvark.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="antebellum">
<B>ante-bellum, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>before the war. <DD><B> 2. </B>(Especially U.S.) before the American Civil War. <BR> <I>Ex. The setting is the ante-bellum plantation in springtime (Saturday Review).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="antecede">
<B>antecede, </B>verb, <B>-ceded,</B> <B>-ceding.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><I>v.t. </I> <B>1. </B>to go before or in front of; precede in time or place. <DD><B> 2. </B>(Rare.) to surpass in rank, wealth, or the like. <DD><I>v.i. </I> to go or come before; come first. </DL>
<A NAME="antecedence">
<B>antecedence, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a going before; precedence; priority. <DD><B> 2. </B>apparent motion of a planet from east to west. </DL>
<B>antecedent, </B>noun, adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> <B>1. </B>any word, phrase, or clause to which a word, especially a pronoun, occurring later in a sentence, refers. In "This is the house that Jack built," <I>house</I> is the antecedent of <I>that.</I> In "I remember the house where I was born," <I>house</I> is the antecedent of <I>where.</I> In "I was determined to act, and he knew it," the antecedent of <I>it</I> is the entire first clause. <DD><B> 2. </B>a previous thing or event; something happening before and leading up to another. <DD><B> 3. </B>(Mathematics.) <DD><B> a. </B>the first term of a ratio (distinguished from <I>consequent</I>). <DD><B> b. </B>the first or third term in a proportion. <DD><B> 4. </B>(Logic.) the part of a conditional proposition which states the condition and upon which the other part (the consequent) logically depends. In the proposition "If it rains, we will get wet," <I>if it rains</I> is the antecedent. <DD><I>adj. </I> <B>1. </B>coming or happening before; preceding; previous. <BR> <I>Ex. The cave men lived in a period of history antecedent to written records.</I> (SYN) prior, earlier. <DD><B> 2. </B>functioning as an antecedent. <BR> <I>Ex. an antecedent clause.</I> <BR><I>expr. <B>antecedents,</B> <DD><B> a. </B>ancestors; ancestry. </I> <I>Ex. He has Scottish antecedents.</I> <DD><B> b. </B>the past life or history. <BR> <I>Ex. No one knew the antecedents of the mysterious stranger.</I> </DL>
<B>antechapel, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>an anterior (usually smaller) chapel. <DD><B> 2. </B>an anteroom of a chapel. </DL>
<A NAME="antechoir">
<B>antechoir, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a space, usually more or less enclosed, in front of the choir of a church. </DL>
<A NAME="antechurch">
<B>antechurch, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a porch or vestibule of a church. </DL>
<A NAME="antecommunion">
<B>antecommunion, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> that part of the Communion office in the Church of England, which precedes the Communion service proper, and is used on those holy days when there is no Communion. </DL>
<A NAME="antecourt">
<B>antecourt, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a front or outer court; forecourt. </DL>
<A NAME="antecubital">
<B>antecubital, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> situated at the front of the elbow. <BR> <I>Ex. an antecubital vein.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="antedate">
<B>antedate, </B>verb, <B>-dated,</B> <B>-dating,</B> noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>v.t. </I> <B>1. </B>to be or happen before; precede. <BR> <I>Ex. Radio antedated television. Just as the first example of photographic realism, which was produced by the Dutch painters, antedated the camera by at least a century, so the first example of highly organized machines antedated power driven mechanical units by four or five millenniums (New Yorker).</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>to give an earlier date to (a document or event). <BR> <I>Ex. Some states require a person to antedate legal papers to Saturday if they are signed on Sunday.</I> <DD><B> 3. </B>to anticipate. <DD><I>noun </I> a date affixed to a document, or assigned to an event, earlier than its actual date. </DL>
<A NAME="antediluvian">
<B>antediluvian, </B>adjective, noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>adj. </I> <B>1. </B>very old or old-fashioned; antiquated (in a disparaging sense). <BR> <I>Ex. antediluvian notions of etiquette.</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>before the Flood. <DD><I>noun </I> <B>1. </B>a very old or old-fashioned person. <DD><B> 2. </B>a person who lived before the Flood. </DL>
<A NAME="antediluvianism">
<B>antediluvianism, </B>noun. <B>=antiquatedness.</B> <I>Ex. France ... is the home at one and the same time ... of modernism and antediluvianism (Newsweek).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="antefix">
<B>antefix, </B>noun, pl. <B>antifixes,</B> <B>antefixa.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>an upright ornament at the lower edge of a tiled roof, placed to conceal the end of a row of convex tiles which cover the joints of the flat tiles. <DD><B> 2. </B>an ornament projecting upward from the top of a cornice. </DL>
<A NAME="antefixal">
<B>antefixal, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> of or like an antefix. </DL>
<A NAME="anteflexion">
<B>anteflexion, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the process of bending forward or the condition of being bent forward, especially of the uterus; anteversion. </DL>
<A NAME="antehall">
<B>antehall, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a smaller hall opening into a larger one. </DL>
<A NAME="antelope">
<B>antelope, </B>noun, pl. <B>-lope</B> or <B>-lopes.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>any one of certain mammals of Africa and Asia that are related to goats and cows but resemble the deer in appearance, grace, and speed. Antelope belong to a group of cud-chewing, hoofed animals usually having a single pair of hollow horns that curve backward and do not fork or branch. The hartebeest, black buck, duiker, steenbok, gazelle, and gnu are all antelopes. <DD><B> 2. </B>(U.S.) the pronghorn of the western plains of North America. It is not related to the true antelopes. <DD><B> 3. </B>leather made from the hide of any of these animals. </DL>
<A NAME="antelopebrush">
<B>antelope brush,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a grayish shrub of the rose family, found in the arid regions of western North America; bitter brush. </DL>
<A NAME="antelopejackrabbit">
<B>antelope jack rabbit,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a large jack rabbit with extremely large ears, an iron-gray body, and whitish sides, common in Arizona and the southwestern United States. </DL>
<A NAME="antemeridian">
<B>antemeridian, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> before noon; in or having to do with the morning. </DL>
<A NAME="antemeridiem">
<B>ante meridiem,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (Latin.) before noon; in the morning; in the period of time between midnight and the following noon. (Abbr:) a.m., A.M. </DL>
<A NAME="antemortem">
<B>ante-mortem, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> before death, especially just before death. <BR> <I>Ex. an ante-mortem confession.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="antemundane">
<B>antemundane, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> before the creation of the world. </DL>
<A NAME="antenatal">
<B>antenatal, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> happening or existing before birth; prenatal. <BR> <I>Ex. antenatal care.</I> adv. <B>antenatally.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="antenna">
<B>antenna, </B>noun, pl. <B>-tennae</B> (for 1 and 3,) <B>-tennas</B> (for 2.)<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>one of the long, slender feelers on the head of an insect, centipede, scorpion, or lobster. Insects and centipedes have one pair of them; lobsters and crabs have two pairs. Some other arthropods, such as spiders, have none. Most antennae are useful primarily as organs of touch, but some are sensitive to odors, sounds, and light. <DD><B> 2. </B>a long wire or set of wires or rods, used in television, radio, or radar for sending out or receiving electromagnetic waves; aerial. <DD><B> 3. </B>(Figurative.) sense of perception. <BR> <I>Ex. A resourceful administrator with keen political antennae ... (Harper's). American wits at the moment have the antennae for details of cliche that the English have for details of vernacular (Penelope Gilliatt).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="antennae">
<B>antennae, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a plural of <B>antenna</B> (defs. 1 and 3). </DL>
