Pl. apices, apexes. [a. L. apex peak, tip, the small rod at the top of the flamen’s cap, perh. f. ap- to fit to (cf. vertex, f. vertĕre to turn); whence, the tip of anything.]

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  1.  (As in Latin.) rare.

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1603.  B. Jonson, James I.’s Entert., Wks. 1838, 532. Upon his head a hat of delicate wool, whose top ended in a cone, and was thence called apex.

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1753.  Chambers, Cycl. Supp., The Apex is described as a stitched cap in form of a helmet, with the addition of a little stick fixed on the top, and wound about with white wool.

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1820.  Mair, Tyro’s Dict., 7. Apicatus, wearing an apex, tufted.

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  2.  The tip of anything, the top or peak of a mountain, pyramid or spire; the pointed end of anything pyramidal or spiral, as a shell or leaf.

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1610.  Healey, St. Aug., City of God, 77. Apex, is any thing … added to the toppe, or highest part of a thing.

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1637.  Heywood, Royal Ship, 2. In the very Apex and top thereof [Mt. Ararat], there is still to be discerned a blacke shadow.

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1727.  De Foe, etc., Tour Gt. Brit. (1769), III. 319. The Precipices were surprisingly variegated with Apices, Prominences, [etc.].

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1848.  Mrs. Jameson, Sacr. & Leg. Art (1850), 108. In the apex of the dome, is seen the Celestial Dove.

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1853.  C. Brontë, Villette, xxix. (1876), 325. It formed the apex to a blooming pyramid.

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1866.  R. Tate, Brit. Mollusks, iii. 56. The shells … have their apices eroded.

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1864.  T. Moore, Brit. Ferns, 111. The apices of the fronds.

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1873.  H. Spencer, Sociol., iii. 49. Crystals … modified by truncations of angles and apices.

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1881.  Raymond, Mining Gloss., Apex, in the U.S. Revenue Statutes, the end or edge of a vein nearest the surface.

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  3.  Geom. The vertex of a triangle or cone.

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1678.  Phillips, Apex, principally in a Geometrical signification, the top of a Conical figure, which ends and sharpens into a point.

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1869.  Rawlinson, Anc. Hist., 56. Memphis, not much above the apex of the Delta.

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1879.  Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 68. The apex of this triangle.

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  4.  fig. (Cf. acme, climax.)

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1641.  R. Brooke, Nat. Eng. Episc., 21. Now … I am neere the Apex of this question.

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a. 1643.  W. Cartwright, To C’tess Carlisle, 57.

        But you who’ve gained the Apex of your kind,
Shew that there are no Sexes in the Mind.

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1868.  M. Pattison, Academ. Org., § 5. 124. Commencing with the rudiments of grammar and terminating in the apex of the Doctorate.

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1883.  A. Blake, in Harper’s Mag., 902/1. Men, when masquerading as women, seem to think they have attained the apex of the comic.

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  5.  The highest or culminating point of time. rare.

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1677.  Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., 292. In the beginning, the first Apex of Time which began with the Being of Matter.

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1864.  Heavysege, Shaks. Tercent. Ode, 2. The apex of the years, The period’s culmination.

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  6.  Bot.a. An early name for the ANTHER or summit of the stamen (obs.). b. The tip of a young plant-shoot, ‘the growing point.’

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1691.  Ray, Creation, I. (1777), 104. The masculine or prolific seed contained in the chiues or apices of the stamina.

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1751.  Chambers, Cycl., s.v., On the tops of the stamina or chives, grow those little capsule or knobs, called Apices.

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1862.  Darwin, Orchids, vi. 251. This apex consists of a thin flattened filament. [See also under ANTHER.]

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  ǁ 7.  A horn or projecting point on a Hebrew letter. (So Vulg. translates κεραία Matt. v. 18; Eng. ‘tittle.’)

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a. 1646.  J. Gregory, Posthuma (1671), 195. There being no difference between Gimel and Nun but a small apex or excrescence, which oft-times escapes the Printer’s diligence.

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  † 8.  Hence fig. A tittle, a jot; the least portion of anything written or said. Obs.

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1635.  Jackson, Creed, VIII. xxvii. Wks. VIII. 113. The words … answer punctually and identically to every apex or titule of St. Matthew’s quotation.

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1661.  Origen’s Opin., in Phœnix, 1721, I. 77. To establish the Sense and Interpretation … upon Tittles and Apices.

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1680.  S. Mather, Iren., 8. Every Apex of truth is precious, the least Jota thereof is not to be despised.

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  9.  Comb., as apex-beat, the impulse of the contraction of the heart.

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1877.  Roberts, Handbk. Med., II. 7. In health the apex-beat is usually felt in the 5th left interspace.

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