Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The property of being pervious.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The quality or state of being pervious.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The quality or state of being
pervious .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the quality of being penetrable (by people or light or missiles etc.)
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Due to it´s perviousness to air and it´s eco-friendliness, porcelain is particularly suitable as a fruitbowl.
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The perviousness of river bottoms contributes largely to their productiveness of this cereal.
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In the emission from both of these sources we have a mixture of obscure and luminous rays; but the ratio of the latter to the former, in the lime light is greater than in the spiral; and, as the very meaning of transparency is perviousness to the luminous rays, the emission in which these rays are predominant must pass most freely through transparent substances.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 Various
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Taking as a model the expression 'transparent' for the perviousness of a substance to light, we may say that the air, when in a state of acoustic vibration, becomes 'trans-audient' for astral impulses, and that the nature of these vibrations determines which particular impulses are let through.
Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs
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The durability of a rock may depend on its perviousness to water which may enter along planes of bedding or incipient fracture planes, or along the minute pore spaces between the mineral particles.
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The striking feature of this plan of drainage, worthy of note, is, that owing to the perviousness of the soil, no tap ditches are required to drain off the excess of rain water over the surface, the whole of the surplus sinking through and being carried off from below.
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Not until he actually stood upon the peak did he know that there was the earthly hitherto -- the final obstacle of unobstancy, the everywhere which, from excess of perviousness, was to human foot impervious.
Sir Gibbie George MacDonald 1864
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Similarly, an architect may deepen or enlarge, in fantastic exaggeration, his original Westmoreland gable into Rouen porch, and his original square roof into Coventry spire; but he must not put within his splendid porch, a little door where two persons cannot together get in, nor cut his spire away into hollow filigree, and mere ornamental perviousness to wind and rain.
Val d'Arno John Ruskin 1859
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From their perviousness to stellar light, and other considerations,
Fragments of science, V. 1-2 John Tyndall 1856
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Thus the white powder, which has shown itself so powerful an absorber, has been specially selected on account of its extreme perviousness to the visible rays, and its extreme imperviousness to the invisible ones; while the dark powder was chosen on account of its extreme transparency to the invisible, and its extreme opacity to the visible, rays.
Fragments of science, V. 1-2 John Tyndall 1856
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