Farthingale, or Fardingale, an article of ladies' attire worn in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and closely resembling the more recent crinoline. It was formed of circles of whalebone hoops, and protruded more at the waist than the Victorian crinoline.
Farukhabad, or Farrakhabad (far-ak-ä-bäd´), a city in Agra division, United Provinces of British India, 2 or 3 miles from the Ganges, a handsome, well-built town, with avenues of trees in many of its streets. Pop. 59,647.
Fasces (fas´sēz), in Roman antiquities, a bundle of polished rods, in the middle of which was an axe, carried by lictors before the superior magistrates. The number of fasces and lictors varied with the dignity of the magistrate. In the city the axe was laid aside.
Fas´cia (Lat., a bandage), in anatomy, signifies any thin sheet of fibrous tissue, such, for example, as the covering which surrounds the muscles of the limbs and binds them in their places.
Fascination (Lat. fascinare, to charm), the exercise of an overpowering and paralysing influence upon some animals attributed to certain snakes. Squirrels, mice, and the smaller birds are said to be the most subject to this power;
but the fact is far from clearly explained, and is not perhaps even sufficiently demonstrated. Most of the accounts agree in describing the animal fascinated as having a painful consciousness of its danger, and the power exercised over it, but to be unable to resist the desire to approach the fascinator. It is probable, however, that the real explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in the influence of the intense emotion of fear upon the muscles.
Fascines (fa-sēnz´), in field engineering, bundles of boughs or rods from 6 to 18 feet in length and usually 1 foot in diameter, used in raising batteries, strengthening parapets, or revetting slopes. The twigs are drawn tightly together by a cord, and bands are passed round them at the distance of 2 feet from each other. Very long thin ones are called saucissons or battery-sausages.
Fasho´da, a station in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, on the Bahr-el-Abiad or White Nile, 400 miles south of Khartoum, and about 70 miles north-east of the confluence of the Sobat with the Nile. In July, 1898, it was occupied by a French force under Colonel Marchand, but some months later was claimed by the British for Egypt. The affair threatened to involve the two countries in war, but ultimately the French evacuated the place, which was then formally occupied by Sudanese troops. It has been renamed Kodok.
Fast-and-loose, a cheating game sometimes played at fairs by gipsies, and also called 'prick the garter'. A belt or strap is doubled and rolled up with the double in the middle of the coils; it is then laid on a board, and the dupe is asked to catch the double with a skewer, when the gambler takes the two ends and looses it or draws it away, so as always to keep the skewer outside the doubled end. The game is mentioned four times in Shakespeare, e.g. Antony and Cleopatra, iv, 12, 28.
Fasti (Lat.), among the Romans, registers of various kinds; as, fasti sacri, calendars of the year, giving the days for festivals or courts, being a sort of almanac.