a word employed in the composition of different terms. It signifies the same with semi or demi, viz. half; being an abbreviation of ἡμίς, which signifies the same thing. The Greeks retrenched the last syllable of the word ἡμίς in the composition of words; and, after their example, we have done so too in most of the compounds borrowed from them.

HEMBOLON, a weight often mentioned by the ancient writers in medicine, and expressing the half of their obolus, or the twelfth part of a drachm, that is, five grains.