Part 825

6. Leakage or outflow, as of steam or a liquid.

7. (Elec.) Leakage or loss of currents from the conducting wires, caused by defective insulation.

Escape pipe (Steam Boilers), a pipe for carrying away steam that escapes through a safety valve. -- Escape valve (Steam Engine), a relief valve; a safety valve. See under Relief, and Safety. -- Escape wheel (Horol.), the wheel of an escapement.

Es*cape"ment (?), n. [Cf. F. échappement. See Escape.] 1. The act of escaping; escape. [R.]

2. Way of escape; vent. [R.]

An escapement for youthful high spirits.

G. Eliot.

3. The contrivance in a timepiece which connects the train of wheel work with the pendulum or balance, giving to the latter the impulse by which it is kept in vibration; -- so called because it allows a tooth to escape from a pallet at each vibration.

Escapements are of several kinds, as the vertical, or verge, or crown, escapement, formerly used in watches, in which two pallets on the balance arbor engage with a crown wheel; the anchor escapement, in which an anchor-shaped piece carries the pallets; -- used in common clocks (both are called recoil escapements, from the recoil of the escape wheel at each vibration); the cylinder escapement, having an open-sided hollow cylinder on the balance arbor to control the escape wheel; the duplex escapement, having two sets of teeth on the wheel; the lever escapement, which is a kind of detached escapement, because the pallets are on a lever so arranged that the balance which vibrates it is detached during the greater part of its vibration and thus swings more freely; the detent escapement, used in chronometers; the remontoir escapement, in which the escape wheel is driven by an independent spring or weight wound up at intervals by the clock train, -- sometimes used in astronomical clocks. When the shape of an escape- wheel tooth is such that it falls dead on the pallet without recoil, it forms a deadbeat escapement.

Es*cap"er (?), n. One who escapes.

Es*car"bun*cle (?), n. [OF. escarbuncle, F. escaboucle.] (Her.) See Carbuncle, 3.

Es*car`ga*toire" (?), n. [F. escargotière, fr. escargot snail.] A nursery of snails. [Obs.] Addison.

Es*carp" (?), n. [F. escarpe (cf. Sp. escarpa, It. scarpa), fr. escarper to cut steep, cut to a slope, prob. of German origin: cf. G. scharf sharp,, E. sharp, or perh. scrape.] (Fort.) The side of the ditch next the parapet; -- same as scarp, and opposed to counterscarp.

Es*carp", v. t. [imp. & p. p. Escarped (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Escarping.] (Mil.) To make into, or furnish with, a steep slope, like that of a scrap. Carleton.

Es*carp"ment (?), n. [Cf. F. escarpement.] A steep descent or declivity; steep face or edge of a ridge; ground about a fortified place, cut away nearly vertically to prevent hostile approach. See Scarp.

-es"cent (?). [From the ending -escens, - entis, of the p. pr. of inchoative verbs in Latin.] A suffix signifying beginning, beginning to be; as, adolescent, effervescent, etc.

Esch`a*lot" (?), n. (Bot.) See Shallot.

Es"char (?), n. [L. eschara, Gr. &?;: cf. F. eschare. See Scar.] (Med.) A dry slough, crust, or scab, which separates from the healthy part of the body, as that produced by a burn, or the application of caustics.

Es"char (?), n. [Ir.] (Geol.) In Ireland, one of the continuous mounds or ridges of gravelly and sandy drift which extend for many miles over the surface of the country. Similar ridges in Scotland are called kames or kams. [Written also eskar and esker.]

||Es"cha*ra (?), n. [NL., fr. Gr. &?; a grate, a pan of coals.] (Zoöl.) A genus of Bryozoa which produce delicate corals, often incrusting like lichens, but sometimes branched.

Es"cha*rine (?), a. (Zoöl.) Like, or pertaining to, the genus Eschara, or family Escharidæ.

Es`cha*rot"ic (?), a. [Gr. &?;, fr. &?; an eschar: cf. F. escharotique.] (Med.) Serving or tending to form an eschar; producing a scar; caustic.

Es`cha*rot"ic, n. (Med.) A substance which produces an eschar; a caustic, esp., a mild caustic.

Es`cha*to*log"ic*al (?), a. Pertaining to the last or final things.

Es`cha*tol"o*gy (?), n. [Gr. &?; the furthest, last + -logy.] The doctrine of the last or final things, as death, judgment, and the events therewith connected.

Es*chaunge" (?), n. Exchange. [Obs.]

Es*cheat" (?), n. [OE. eschete, escheyte, an escheat, fr. OF. escheit, escheoit, escheeite, esheoite, fr. escheoir (F. échoir) to fall to, fall to the lot of; pref. es- (L. ex) + cheoir, F. choir, to fall, fr. L. cadere. See Chance, and cf. Cheat.] 1. (Law) (a) (Feud. & Eng. Law) The falling back or reversion of lands, by some casualty or accident, to the lord of the fee, in consequence of the extinction of the blood of the tenant, which may happen by his dying without heirs, and formerly might happen by corruption of blood, that is, by reason of a felony or attainder. Tomlins. Blackstone. (b) (U. S. Law) The reverting of real property to the State, as original and ultimate proprietor, by reason of a failure of persons legally entitled to hold the same.

A distinction is carefully made, by English writers, between escheat to the lord of the fee and forfeiture to the crown. But in this country, where the State holds the place of chief lord of the fee, and is entitled to take alike escheat and by forfeiture, this distinction is not essential. Tomlins. Kent.