a canonical book of the Old Testament, written by the prophet Jeremiah. The two first chapters of this book are employed in describing the calamities of the siege of Jerusalem. In the third, the author deplores the persecutions he himself had suffered. The fourth turns upon the desolation of the city and temple, and the misfortune of Zedekiah. The fifth chapter is a prayer for the Jews in their dispersion and captivity; and at the end of all, he speaks of the cruelty of the Edomites, who had insulted Jerusalem in her misery. The first four chapters of the lamentations are an abecedar, every verse or couplet beginning with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in the alphabetical order.

LAMINÆ, in physiology, the thin plates whereof many substances consist.