Part 615

5. Deviating from stated methods, usual practice, or established forms or laws; deviating from an appointed sphere or way; departing from the usual course; irregular; anomalous; odd; as, eccentric conduct. "This brave and eccentric young man." Macaulay.

He shines eccentric, like a comet's blaze.

Savage.

Eccentric anomaly. (Astron.) See Anomaly. -- Eccentric chuck (Mach.), a lathe chuck so constructed that the work held by it may be altered as to its center of motion, so as to produce combinations of eccentric combinations of eccentric circles. -- Eccentric gear. (Mach.) (a) The whole apparatus, strap, and other parts, by which the motion of an eccentric is transmitted, as in the steam engine. (b) A cogwheel set to turn about an eccentric axis used to give variable rotation. -- Eccentric hook or gab, a hook-shaped journal box on the end of an eccentric rod, opposite the strap. -- Eccentric rod, the rod that connects as eccentric strap with any part to be acted upon by the eccentric. -- Eccentric sheave, or Eccentric pulley, an eccentric. -- Eccentric strap, the ring, operating as a journal box, that encircles and receives motion from an eccentric; -- called also eccentric hoop.

Syn. -- Irregular; anomalous; singular; odd; peculiar; erratic; idiosyncratic; strange; whimsical.

Ec*cen"tric (?), n. 1. A circle not having the same center as another contained in some measure within the first.

2. One who, or that which, deviates from regularity; an anomalous or irregular person or thing.

3. (Astron.) (a) In the Ptolemaic system, the supposed circular orbit of a planet about the earth, but with the earth not in its center. (b) A circle described about the center of an elliptical orbit, with half the major axis for radius. Hutton.

4. (Mach.) A disk or wheel so arranged upon a shaft that the center of the wheel and that of the shaft do not coincide. It is used for operating valves in steam engines, and for other purposes. The motion derived is precisely that of a crank having the same throw.

Back eccentric, the eccentric that reverses or backs the valve gear and the engine. -- Fore eccentric, the eccentric that imparts a forward motion to the valve gear and the engine.

Ec*cen"tric*al (?), a. See Eccentric.

Ec*cen"tric*al*ly, adv. In an eccentric manner.

Drove eccentrically here and there.

Lew Wallace.

Ec`cen*tric"i*ty (?), n.; pl. Eccentricities (#). [Cf. F. excentricité.] 1. The state of being eccentric; deviation from the customary line of conduct; oddity.

2. (Math.) The ratio of the distance between the center and the focus of an ellipse or hyperbola to its semi-transverse axis.

3. (Astron.) The ratio of the distance of the center of the orbit of a heavenly body from the center of the body round which it revolves to the semi-transverse axis of the orbit.

4. (Mech.) The distance of the center of figure of a body, as of an eccentric, from an axis about which it turns; the throw.

Ec"chy*mose (?), v. t. (Med.) To discolor by the production of an ecchymosis, or effusion of blood, beneath the skin; -- chiefly used in the passive form; as, the parts were much ecchymosed.

||Ec`chy*mo"sis (?), n.; pl. Ecchymoses (&?;). [NL., fr. Gr. &?;, fr. &?; to extravasate; &?; out of + &?; to pour.] (Med.) A livid or black and blue spot, produced by the extravasation or effusion of blood into the areolar tissue from a contusion.

Ec`chy*mot"ic (?), a. Pertaining to ecchymosis.

Ec"cle (?), n. (Zoöl.) The European green woodpecker; -- also called ecall, eaquall, yaffle. [Prov. Eng.]

||Ec*cle"si*a (?), n.; pl. Ecclesiæ (&?;). [L., fr. Gr. &?;.] 1. (Gr. Antiq.) The public legislative assembly of the Athenians.

2. (Eccl.) A church, either as a body or as a building.

Ec*cle"si*al (?), a. Ecclesiastical. [Obs.] Milton.

Ec*cle"si*arch (?), n. [LL. ecclesiarcha, fr. Gr. &?; church + &?; to rule: cf. F. ecclésiarque.] An official of the Eastern Church, resembling a sacrist in the Western Church.

Ec*cle"si*ast (?), n. 1. An ecclesiastic. Chaucer.

2. The Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. [Obs.]