a part of the human body, terminating at one end in the shoulder, and at the other in the hand.

among sportsmen, is applied to a horse, when by pressing down his head, he endeavours to defend himself against the bit, to prevent his being checked by it. The remedy is, to have a wooden ball covered with velvet, or other matter, put on his chaul, which will so press him between the jaw-bones as to prevent his bringing his head near his breast.

in Geography, is used for the branch of a sea or river. Italy and Sicily are only parted by an arm of the sea. St George's arm in the Mediterranean is the Thracian Bosphorus.

ARM is also used figuratively for power. The secular arm is the lay or temporal authority of a secular judge; to which recourse is had for the execution of the sentences passed by ecclesiastical judges.

The church sheds no blood: even the judges of the inquisition, after they have found the person guilty, surrender him to the secular arm. The council of Antioch, held in 341, decrees, that recourse be had to the secular arm to repress those who refuse obedience to the church: for secular arm, they here use exterior power.

in respect of the magnet. A loadstone is said to be armed, when it is capped, caged, or set in iron or steel, in order to make it take up the greater weight, and also to distinguish readily its poles. See Magnetism.