2. The act or state of falling off or declining from
excellence or perfection; deterioration; decay; decline.
``The declination of monarchy.'' --Bacon.
Summer . . . is not looked on as a time Of
declination or decay. --Waller.
3. The act of deviating or turning aside; oblique motion;
obliquity; withdrawal.
The declination of atoms in their descent.
--Bentley.
Every declination and violation of the rules.
--South.
4. The act or state of declining or refusing; withdrawal;
refusal; averseness.
The queen's declination from marriage. --Stow.
5. (Astron.) The angular distance of any object from the
celestial equator, either northward or southward.
6. (Dialing) The arc of the horizon, contained between the
vertical plane and the prime vertical circle, if reckoned
from the east or west, or between the meridian and the
plane, reckoned from the north or south.
7. (Gram.) The act of inflecting a word; declension. See
{Decline}, v. t., 4.
{Angle of declination}, the angle made by a descending line,
or plane, with a horizontal plane.
{Circle of declination}, a circle parallel to the celestial
equator.
{Declination compass} (Physics), a compass arranged for
finding the declination of the magnetic needle.
{Declination of the compass} or {needle}, the horizontal
angle which the magnetic needle makes with the true
north-and-south line.
Note: In some needles(as for sewing machines) the eye is at
the pointed end, but in ordinary needles it is at the
blunt end.
2. See {Magnetic needle}, under {Magnetic}.
3. A slender rod or wire used in knitting; a knitting needle;
also, a hooked instrument which carries the thread or
twine, and by means of which knots or loops are formed in
the process of netting, knitting, or crocheting.
4. (Bot.) One of the needle-shaped secondary leaves of pine
trees. See {Pinus}.
5. Any slender, pointed object, like a needle, as a pointed
crystal, a sharp pinnacle of rock, an obelisk, etc.
{Dipping needle}. See under {Dipping}.
{Needle bar}, the reciprocating bar to which the needle of a
sewing machine is attached.
{Needle beam} (Arch.), to shoring, the horizontal cross
timber which goes through the wall or a pier, and upon
which the weight of the wall rests, when a building is
shored up to allow of alterations in the lower part.
{Needle furze} (Bot.), a prickly leguminous plant of Western
Europe; the petty whin ({Genista Anglica}).
{Needle gun}, a firearm loaded at the breech with a cartridge
carrying its own fulminate, which is exploded by driving a
slender needle, or pin, into it.
{Needle loom} (Weaving), a loom in which the weft thread is
carried through the shed by a long eye-pointed needle
instead of by a shuttle.
{Needle ore} (Min.), acicular bismuth; a sulphide of bismuth,
lead, and copper occuring in acicular crystals; -- called
also {aikinite}.
{Needle shell} (Zo["o]l.), a sea urchin.
{Needle spar} (Min.), aragonite.
{Needle telegraph}, a telegraph in which the signals are
given by the deflections of a magnetic needle to the right
or to the left of a certain position.
{Sea needle} (Zo["o]l.), the garfish.