pnugues/EB7 huggingface dataset:
COMMA, among grammarians, a point or character marked thus (,), serving to denote a short stop, and to divide the members of a period. Different authors define and use it differently. According to Buffer, the comma serves to distinguish the members of a period, in each of which is a verb and the nominative case of the verb: thus, “That so many people are pleased with trifles, is owing to a weakness of mind, which makes them love things easy to be comprehended.” Besides this, the comma is used to distinguish, in the same member of a period, several nouns substantive or nouns adjective, or verbs not united by a conjunction: thus, “Virtue, wit, knowledge, are the chief advantages of a man or, “A man never becomes learned without studying constantly, methodically, with gusto, application,” &c. If such words are united in the same phrase with a conjunction, the comma is omitted: thus, “The imagination and the judgment do not always agree.”

The ingenious author of the tract De Ratione Interpungendi, printed with NosA ∖ ιs s Element. Rhetor. London, 1734, lays down the use of a comma to be, to distinguish the simple members of a period or sentence; that is, such as only consist of one subject and one definite verb. But this rule does not hold throughout; the same author instancing many particular cases not yet included in it, where the comma is advisable.

It is a general rule that a comma ought not to come between a nominative and a verb, or an adjective and substantive, when these are not otherwise disjoined: thus, in the sentence, God ruleth with infinite wisdom, a comma between God and rideth, or between infinite and wisdom, would be absurd. But to this exceptions may occur; as when not a single word, bnt a sentence, happens to be the nominative; thus, in the example first above given, where the sentence that so many people are pleased with trifiles, forms the nominative to the verb is, a comma at trifies is proper, both for the sake of perspicuity, and as coinciding with a slight natural pause. See Punctuation. Comma, in Music. See Interval.
COMMACHIO, a city and fortress in the delegation of Ferrara, in Italy, belonging to the pope, but garrisoned by Austria, in pursuance of the treaty of Vienna. It is situated in a marshy position, which constitutes its chief defence. It is deemed very unhealthy, but contains 3500 inhabitants. Long. 12. 4. E. Lat. 44. 40. N.
COMMANDR Ý, a kind of benefice or fixed revenue belonging to a military order, and conferred on ancient knights who had done considerable services to the order.

There are strict or regular commandries, obtained in order and by merit; there are others of grace and favour, conferred at the pleasure of the grand master; there are also commandites for the religious in the orders of St Bernard and St Anthony. The kings of France have converted several of the hospitals for lepers into commandries of the order of St Lazarus.

The com man dries of Malta were of different kinds; for as the order consisted of knights, chaplains, and brothers servitors, there were peculiar commandries or revenues attached to each. The knight to whom one of these benefices or commandites was given was called commander, which agrees pretty nearly with the praepositus set over the monks in places at a distance from the monastery, and whose administration was called obedientia, because depending entirely upon the abbot who gave him his commission. Thus it was with the simple commanders of Malta, who were rather farmers of the order than beneficiaries; paying a certain tribute or rent, called responsio, to the common treasury of the order.
COMMEMORATION, in a general sense, the remembrance of any person or thing, or the doing any thing to the honour of a person’s memory, or in remembrance of any past event. Thus, the cucharist is a commemoration of the sufferings of Jesus Christ.
COMMENDAM, in the ecclesiastical law, the trust or administration of the revenues of a benefice, given either to a layman, to hold by way of depositum for six months, in order to repairs, &c., or to an ecclesiastic or beneficed person, to perform the pastoral duties thereof until the benefice be provided with a regular incumbent.

Anciently the administration of vacant bishoprics belonged to the nearest neighbouring bishop; and on this account such prelates were called commendatory bishops.

This custom appears to be very ancient. St Athanasius says of himself, according to Nicephorus, that there had been given him in commendam, or in administration, another church besides that of Alexandria, of which he was stated bishop.

The care of churches which had no pastor was, it seems, committed to a bishop till they were provided with an ordinary. The register of Pope Gregory I. is full of these commissions or commendams, granted during the absence or sickness of a bishop, or the vacancy of the see.

Some say that Pope Leo IV. first established the modern commendams, in favour of ecclesiastics who had been expelled their benefices by the Saracens, and that to them the administration of the vacant churches was committed for a time, in expectation of their being restored; though [7:7:155]St Gregory is said to have done the same thing while the Lombards desolated Italy.

In a little time the practice of commendams was exceed- ∙; n o∙iy abused, and the revenues of monasteries were given to°laymen for their subsistence. The bishops also procured several benefices, or even bishoprics, in commcndam, which served as a pretext for holding all of them at once, without directly violating the canons. Part of the abuse has been retrenched; but the use of commendams is still retained, as an expedient to take off the incompatibility of the person by the nature of the benefice.

When a parson is made bishop, his parsonage becomes vacant; but if the king give him power, he may still hold it in commendam.
COMMENDATUS, one who lives under the protection of a great man. Commendati homines were persons who, by voluntary homage, put themselves under the protection of any superior lord. Ancient homage was either predial, due for some tenure; or personal, which was by compulsion, as a sign of necessary subjection; or voluntary, with a desire of protection; and those who, by voluntary homage, put themselves under the protection of any man in power, were sometimes called homines ejus commendati, as often occurs in Doomsday-book. Commendati dimidii were those who depended on two several lords, and paid one half of their homage to each; and sub-commendati were like under-tenants under the command of persons who were themselves under the command of some superior lord. There were also dimidii sub-commendati, who bore a double relation to such depending lords. This phrase seems to be still in use in the usual compliment, “Com-* mend me to such a friend,”,which is to let him know’ “I am his humble servant.”
COMMENSI HABLE, among geometricians, an appellation given to such quantities as are measured by one and the same common measure.

Commensurable Numbers, whether integers or fractions, are such as can be measured or divided by some other number without any remainder; such are 12 and 18, as being measured by 6 and 3.

Commensurable in Power, is said of right lines when their squares are measured by one and the same space or superficies.

Commensurable Surds, those which, being reduced to their least terms, become true figurative quantities of their kind; and are therefore as a rational quantity to a rational one.
COMMENTARY, or Comment, in matters of literature, an illustration of the difficult or obscure passages of an author.

Commentary, or Commentaries, likewise denotes a kind of history, or memoirs of certain transactions, in which the author had a considerable share; such are the Commentaries of Caesar.
COMMERCY, an arrondissement of the department of the Meuse, in France, extending over 802 square miles, divided into seven cantons, and containing a population of 78,284 inhabitants, in 181 communes. The chief place, a city of the same name, is situated on the left bank of the Meuse, and is a neat, well-built plaec, containing 700 houses and 3386 inhabitants. Long. 5. 30. E. Lat. 48. 49. N.
COMMEWINA, a river of South America, in Guiana, which rises in the mountains in the interior, and falls into the Surinam, about ten miles from its mouth. It is from two to four miles in breadth, but so shallow, and so full of quicksands, small islands, and rocks, as to render its navigation very difficult. On its banks are some beautiful plantations of coffee and sugar.
COMMIM, a town and district of Hindustan, in the Balaghaut ceded territories. The town is the capital of the district, and is seventy-three miles north from Cuddapah. The district is situated among the eastern Ghauts, between the 15th and 16th degrees of north latitude. It is of an irregular surface, and has many mountain streams, though no rivers of any magnitude.
COMMINATION, an office in the liturgy of the church of England, appointed to be read on Ash Wednesday, or the first day of Lent. It is substituted in the room of that godly discipline in the primitive church, by which, as the introduction to the office expresses it, “such persons as stood convicted of notorious sins were put to penance, and punished in this wOrld, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend.” This discipline, in after ages, degenerated in the church of Rome into a formal confession of sins upon Ash Wednesday, and the empty ceremony of sprinkling ashes upon the heads of the people. But our reformers rejected the ceremony as mere show and shadow, and substituted in its room this office, which is a denunciation of God’s anger and judgment against sinners, that the people, being apprised of God’s wrath and indignation against sin, may not, through want of discipline in the church, be encouraged to pursue it, but rather be moved to supply that discipline to themselves, and so as to avoid being judged and condemned at the tribunal of God.
COMMINATORY, an appellation given to whatever threatens punishment or some penalty.
COMMINUTION denotes the breaking, or rather grinding, a body into very small particles.
COMMIRE, John, a modern Latin poet, born at Amboise in 1625, entered into the society of the Jesuits, and taught polite literature and divinity. He died at Paris in 1702. We have a volume of his Latin poems, and a collection of his posthumous works by Sanadon, 1704. His odes are imitations of Horace; and his fables, which have neither the elegant precision nor the moral tendency of those of Phaedrus, are rather ingenious parallels and agreeable descriptions, than fables properly so called. His paraphrases of the Psalms and the Prophets possess but little merit.
COMMISSARY, in the ecclesiastical law, an officer of the bishop, who exercises spiritual jurisdiction in places of a diocese so far from the episcopal see that the chancellor cannot call the people to the bishop’s principal consistory court, without putting them to too much inconvenience.

Commissary Court, in Scotland, a court originally constituted by the bishops, and anciently called the bishops court, curia Christianitatis, or consistorial court. This court was regulated by Queen Mary at the Reformation, and continued in a certain modified form as a separate tribunal until lately, when it was in a great measure merged in the court of session. See Scotland.
COMMISSION, in common law, the warrant or letters patent, which all persons exercising jurisdiction have to empower them to hear or determine any cause or suit; as the commission of the judges, and the like.

Commission of Bankrupt. See Bankruptcy. Commission of Lunacy issues out of the court of chancery, in order to try whether a person represented to be a lunatic be so or not. See Lunacy. Commission of Teinds, a court at Edinburgh, which came instead of a committee of the Scottish parliament, [7:7:177]for erecting new parishes, and valuing temds for the support of the clergy. It is vested in the lords of session. See Scotland. . Commission, in Commerce. See Factorage.
COMMISSIONER, a person authorized by commission, letters patent, or other lawful warrant, to examine any matters, or execute any lawful commission.
COMMISSURE, a term used by some authors for the small interstices of bodies, or the little clefts between the particles, especially when those particles are broadish and flat, and he contiguously to one another, like thin plates and lamellae. The word literally signifies a joining or connecting of one thing to another.
COMMITMENT, in criminal law, is the sending to prison a person whfì has been guilty of any crime, or charged with any offence. This takes place where the offence is not bailable, or the party cannot find bail. It must be done by proper warrant, containing the cause of the commitment; and it continues till put an end to by the course of law, imprisonment being intended only for safe custody, and not for punishment.
COMMITTEE, one or more persons to whom the consideration or ordering of a matter is referred, either by some court, or by the consent of parties whom it concerns, and who are interested therein.

Committee of Parliament, a certain number of members appointed by the house for the examination of a bill, or for inquiring into and making a report upon some particular subject. Sometimes the whole house is resolved into a committee; on which occasion each person has a right to speak and reply as much and as often as he pleases; an expedient which is usually had recourse to where any thing is to be thoroughly canvassed. When the house is not in committee, each gives his opinion regularly, and is only allowed to speak once, unless to explain himself. The standing committees, appointed by every new parliament, are those of privileges and elections, of religion, of grievances, of courts of justice, of trade, &c.
COMMODATE, Commodatum, in the civil law, the loan or free concession of any thing moveable or immoveable, for a certain time, on condition of restoring again the same individual, thing, or subject, after a certain term. The commodate is a kind of loan; there is this difference, however, between a loan and a commodate, that the latter is gratis, and does not transfer the property. The thing must be returned in essence, and without impairment; so that things which consume by use or time cannot be objects of commodate, but only of loan, because they may be returned in kind, though not in identity.
COMMODITY, in a general sense, denotes any sort of ware or merchandise whatsoever, which a person deals or trades in.

Staple Commodities, such wares and merchandises as are commonly and readily sold in a market, or exported abroad; being for the most part the proper produce or manufacture of the country.
COMMODORE, a general officer in the British marine, invested with the command of a detachment of ships of war, destined on any particular enterprise, during which time he bears the rank of brigadier-general in the army, and his ship is distinguished from the rest of his squadron by a broad red pendant tapering towards the outer end, and sometimes forked. The word is corrupted from the Spanish comendador. Commodore is also a name given to some select ship in a fleet of merchantmen, which leads the van in time of war, and carries a light in its top, to conduct the rest and keep them together. It is always the oldest captain in the fleet who commands.
COMMODUS, L. Aurelius Antoninus, son of Μ. Antoninus, succeeded his father in the Roman empire. He was naturally cruel, and fond of indulging his licentious propensities. He wished to be called Hercules; and, like that hero, he adorned his shoulders with a lion’s skin, and armêd his hand with a knotted club. He publicly fought with the gladiators, and boasted of his dexterity in killing the wild beasts in the amphitheatre. He required divine honours from the senate, and they were granted him. He was accustomed to put such an immense quantity of gold dust in his hair, that when he appeared bareheaded in the sunshine, his head glittered as if surrounded with sunbeams. Martia, one of his concubines, whose death he had prepared, poisoned him; but as the poison did not quickly operate, he was strangled by a wrestler. He died in the thirty-first year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign. It has been observed, that he never trusted himself to a barber, but always burnt his beard, in imitation of the tyrant Dionysius, a. d. 192.
COMMONER, or Gentleman-Commoner, in the universities, a student entered in a certain rank.
COMMONS, or House of Commons, a denomination given to the lower house of parliament. See England and Parliament.
COMMONTY, in Scotch Law, sometimes signifies lands belonging to two or more common proprietors; sometimes a heath or muir, though it should belong in property to one, if there has been a promiscuous possession of it by means of pasturage; and the act 1695 mentions commonties belonging in property to the king and to royal boroughs.
COMMOTE, an ancient term in Wales, denoting half a cantred, or hundred, containing fifty villages. See Hundred. Wales was anciently divided into three provinces, each of them subdivided into cantreds, and every cantred into two commotes or hundreds. Silvester Girald, however, tells us in his Itinerary, that a commote is but a quarter of a hundred.
COMMUNIS, in Botany, the name of a class in Linnaeus’s Methodus Calycina, consisting of two plants which, like teazel and dandelion, have a calyx or flower-cup common to many flowers or florets. These are the aggregate or compound flowers of other systems.
COMMUNIBUS Locis, a Latin term, in frequent use among philosophical and other writers, implying some medium or mean relation between several places. Dr Keil supposes the ocean to be one quarter of a mile deep, communibus locis, that is, at a medium, or taking one place with another.

Communibus Annis has the same import with regard to years that communibus locis has with regard to places.
COMMUNICATING, in Theology, the act of receiving the sacrament of the eucharist. Those of the reformed and of the Greek churches communicate under both kinds; those of the Roman Catholic church under only one. The oriental communicants receive the species of wine by a spoon, and anciently they sucked it through a pipe, as has been observed by Rheanus on Tertullian.
COMMUNICATION, in a general sense, the act of imparting something to another.

Communication is also used for the connection of one thing with another, or the passage from one place to another: thus a gallery is a communication between two apartments.

Communication of motion, the act by which a body at rest is put into motion by a moving body; or it is the acceleration of motion in a body already moving.
COMMUNITY denotes a society of men living in the same place, under the same laws, the same regulations, and the same customs.
COMNENA, Anna, daughter of Alexius Comnenus, emperor of the East, celebrated for her great learning and virtue, and for her history of the life and actions of her father, which is highly esteemed. She flourished about the year 1117. Her history, which is in fifteen books, was first published very imperfectly by Heschelius in 1610, and afterwards printed in the collection of the Byzantine historians, with a diffuse and incorrect Latin version by the Jesuit Possimus, but with excellent notes by the learned Du Fresne.
COMO, a lake in the Austrian kingdom of Venetian Lombardy. It is formed by the water of the river, and of more than one hundred and ninety small brooks and rivulets that empty themselves into it. Its whole length is about thirty-five miles, but its breadth scarcely in any part exceeds three miles. Its elevation above the sea is about 700 feet. The southern portion of the lake is divided into two branches, the shorter of which, running south-west, extends to the town of Como, and the longer south-east to Vapres, near Bergamo. The surrounding country is picturesque and beautiful. The banks exhibit vineyards, olives, and mulberry trees in great abundance, and the lake abounds in fish.

Como, a delegation of the government of Milan, in the Austrian kingdom of Venetian Lombardy, bounded on the north by Switzerland and Sandrio, on the east by Brescia, on the south by Milan, and on the west by the kingdom of Sardinia. Being towards the foot of the Alps, the northern part is mountainous, and the southern undulating. Between the spurs of the mountains are some beautiful and fertile valleys. It extends over 1260 square miles, or 806,400 English acres, and comprehends two cities, sixteen market-towns, and 510 villages, with 43,117 houses, and, in 1817, 315,634 inhabitants. The chief productions are, corn, wine, fruit, and fish. The manufactures are silk and linen articles; but many of the districts subsist by making optical glasses, and by preparing mathematical, surgical, and physical instruments. The purity of the atmosphere attracts many of the richer families of Italy to the district, where they have built numerous rural villas.

Como, a city, the capital of the delegation of the same name, in Italy, on the southern extremity of the celebrated lake of the same name. It is the seat of a bishop, and of the courts of law and revenue, and contains a cathedral and nine other churches, with 604 houses and 7500 inhabitants. It is in long. 9. 0. 21. E. and lat. 45. 48. 22. N.
COMORIN, Cape, the southern extremity of the continent of India, surrounded by rocks, and therefore unsafe for ships to approach very near it. It is situated in the territories of the rajah of Travancore. Long. 77. 35. E. Lat. 7. 37. N.
COMORO, an island in the Eastern Seas, thirty-two miles in length by sixteen in average breadth. It is situated between Sumbhawa and Floris, and the 8th and 9th degrees of north latitude.
COMPACT, in Philosophy, is said of bodies which are of a close, dense, and heavy texture, with few pores, and those very small.

Compact, in a legal sense, signifies an agreement or contract stipulated between several parties.
COMPANION, one with whom a man frequently converses.
COMPANY’S Island, an uninhabited island in the North Pacific Ocean, about sixty miles in length and thirty in breadth. Long. 151. 20. E. Lat. 46. N.
COMPARATIVE Anatomy. See Anatomy. Comparative Degree, among grammarians, that between the positive and superlative degrees, expressive of any particular quality as above or below the level of another.
COMPART ΓΠON, in Architecture, denotes the useful and graceful disposition of the whole ground-plot of an edifice, into rooms of office, and of reception or entertainment.
COMPARTMENT, in general, is a design composed of several different figures, disposed with symmetry, to adorn a parterre, a ceiling, or the like.
[7:7:188]

A compartment of tiles or bricks is an arrangement of them, of different colours, and varnished, for the decora- 'tion of a building. Compartments in gardening are an assemblage of beds, plots, borders, walks, and the like, disposed in the most advantageous manner which the ground will admit of. Compartments in heraldry are otherwise called partitions.
COMPASS, or Mariner’s Steering Compass. See Mariner’s Compass. CθMPASS-Dials are small horizontal dials, fitted in brass or silver boxes, for the pocket, to show the hour of the day, by the direction of a needle that indicates how to place them right, by turning the dial about till the cock or style stands directly over the needle; but these can never be very exact, because of the variation of the needle itself. See Dialing.
COMPASSION, or Commiseration, a mixed passion, compounded of love and sorrow, and excited by the sight or recital of distress. Hobbes makes this a merely selfish passion, and defines it as consisting of fear for ourselves. Hutcheson resolves it into instinct; but Dr Butler, much [7:7:189]more properly, considers it as an original, distinct, particular affection in human nature.