Anab´asis (Gr. anabasis, a march up country), the title of Xenophon's celebrated account of the expedition of Cyrus the Younger against his brother Artaxerxes, King of Persia. The title is also given to Arrian's work which records the campaigns of Alexander the Great.
An´ableps, a genus of fishes of the perch family, found in the rivers of Guiana, consisting of but one species, remarkable for a peculiar structure of the eyes, in which there is a division of the iris and cornea, by transverse ligaments forming two pupils, and making the whole eye appear double. The young are brought forth alive.
Anabolism (Gr. ana, up, and bolé, a throw), a biological term suggested by Michael Foster, and used by Gaskell in 1886, and meaning the building-up of organic life, or the process by which a substance is transformed into another which is more complex. Anabolism is the constructive phase of metabolism (q.v.).
Anacanthi´ni (Gr. neg. prefix an, and akantha, a spine), an order of osseous fishes, including the cod, plaice, &c., with spineless fins, cycloid or ctenoid scales, the ventral fins either absent or below the pectorals, and ductless swim-bladder.
Anacardia´ceæ, a nat. ord. of plants, consisting of tropical trees and shrubs which secrete an acrid resinous juice, which is often used as a varnish. Mastic, Japan lacquer, and Martaban varnish are some of their products. The cashoo or cashew (genus Anacardium), the pistacia, sumach, mango, &c., are members of the order.
Anach´aris, a genus of plants, nat. ord. Hydrocharidaceæ, the species of which grow in ponds and streams of fresh water; water-thyme or water-weed. It appeared in Britain in the nineteenth century. A. Alsinastrum has been introduced from North America into European rivers, canals, and ponds, and by its rapid growth in dense tangled masses tends to choke them so as materially to impede navigation. The plants in our canals perfect no seed, their spread being due to vegetative vigour only.
Anach´ronism, an error of chronology by
which things are represented as coexisting which did not coexist; applied also to anything foreign to or out of keeping with a specified time. Thus it is an anachronism when Shakespeare, in Troilus and Cressida, makes Hector quote Aristotle. There are anachronisms in the Cid and the Nibelungenlied, and also in Dante's Inferno, when the poet introduces pagan mythology into the Christian hell.
Anacolu´thon, a want of grammatical and logical sequence in the structure of a sentence.
