a sacerdotal ornament worn on the head, by bishops and certain abbots on solemn occasions; being a sort of cap, pointed and cleft at top. The high-priest among the Jews wore a mitre or bonnet on his head. The inferior priests of the same nation had likewise their mitres; but in what respect they differed from that of the high-priest, is uncertain. Some contend that the ancient bishops wore mitres; but this is by no means certain.

**Mitre**, in architecture, is the workmen's term for an angle that is just 45 degrees, or half a right one. If the angle be a quarter of a right angle, they call it a half-mitre.

To describe such angles, they have an instrument called the *mitre-square*; with this they strike mitre-lines on their quarters or battens; and for dispatch, they have a *mitre-box*, as they call it, which is made of two pieces of wood, each about an inch thick, one nailed upright on the edge of the other; the upper piece hath the mitre-lines struck upon it on both sides, and a kerf to direct the saw in cutting the mitre-joints readily, by only applying the piece into this box.

**Mitre** is used by the writers of the Irish history for a sort of base money, which was very common there about the year 1270, and for 30 years before and as many after.

There were beside the mitre several other pieces called according to the figures impressed upon them, rofaries, lionades, eagles, and by the like names. They were imported from France and other countries, and were so much below the proper currency of the kingdom, that they were not worth so much as a halfpenny each. They were at length decreed in the year 1300, and good coins struck in their place. These were the first Irish coins in which the sceptre was left out. They were struck in the reign of Edward, the son of our Henry III, and are still found among the other antiquities of that country. They have the king's head in a triangle full-faced. The penny, when well preserved, weighs 22 grains; the halfpenny 10½ grains.