GYM 
tient, without any apparent fault in the 
eye, is entirely deprived of sight. 
GUTTVE, in architecture, are ornaments 
in the form of little cones, used in the pla- 
fond of the Doric corniche, or on the archi- 
trave underneath the triglyphs, represent- 
ing a sort of drops or bells. They are 
usually six in number. 
GUTTERS, in architecture, a kind of 
canals in the roofs of houses, serving to re- 
ceive and carry off the rain. 
GUTTURAL, a terra applied to letters 
or sounds pronounced or formed as it were 
in the throat, viz. ynriN, which, for memo- 
ry’s sake, are termed ahachah. 
GUTTY, in heraldry, a term used when 
any thing is charged or sprinkled with 
drops. In blazoning, the colour of the 
drops is to be named, as gutty of sable, of 
gules, &c. 
GUY, in a ship, is any rope used for 
keeping off things from bearing or falling 
against the ship’s sides when they are hoist- 
ing in. 
That rope, which at one end is made fast 
to the fore-mast, and seized to a single 
block at the pendant of the garnet, is called 
the guy of the garnet. 
GYBING, the art of shifting any boom- 
sail from one side of the vessel to another. 
By a boom-sail is meant any sail, the bot- 
tom of which is extended by a boom, (see 
Boom) the fore-end of which is hooked to 
its respective mast, so as to swing occasion- 
ally on either side of the vessel, describing 
an arch of which the mast is the centre. As 
the wind changes, it becomes necessary to 
change the position of the boom, together 
with its sail, which is accordingly shifted to 
the other side of the vessel, as a door turns 
upon its hinges. 
GYMNANTHES, in botany, a genus 
of the Monoecia Monadelpliia class and 
order. Essential character : male ament 
naked ; perianth and corolla none ; stamina 
pedicels three-parted or three-forked, anther 
bearing; female ament or germ pedicelled ; 
corolla none ; style trifid ; capsule tricoc- 
cous, three-celled. There are two species, 
natives of the West Indies. 
GYMNASTICS. This word, derived 
from the Greek, comprehends all those 
athletic exercises by which the ancients 
rendered the body pliant and healthy, and 
enabled the muscles to do their offices with 
treble effect. The variety of methods con- 
trived for this purpose was very numerous, 
and the ard&ur with which they were pur- 
sued at every opportunity, contributed to 
GYM 
banish all dread of personal danger, and 
prepared the youth of each nation for the 
military life. 
Persons were appointed to teach the va- 
rious sports, and the gymnasium was a pub- 
lic receptacle for their performance; the 
exercises amounted to nearly sixty descrip- 
tions, and the parties concerned in them 
originally appeared in drawers, but after- 
wards totally naked, in order to give full 
scope to their limbs. The gymnasium was 
under the superintendance of a master, 
styled gymnasiarch, who had two assistants, 
the xystarch and the gymnastis. The mas- 
ter was selected from the higher classes of 
the people, as his office was of considerable 
importance, and his deputies presided over 
the inferior persons employed in teaching ; 
the former directing the wrestlers, and the 
latter the progress of the other exercises, 
that the youths might neither suffer through 
accident or too violent exertion. 
It has been asserted that the whole sys- 
tem of education amongst the Greeks, was 
comprehended in two essential points, gym- 
nastics and music ; dancing, under several 
divisions, invariably accompanied their mu- 
sic in warlike, festive, and bacchanalian 
movements, to which they added, at proper 
times, tumbling, numerous modes of play- 
ing with the ball, leaping, foot-races, pitch- 
ing the discus, throwing the javelin, wrest- 
ling, boxing, &c. Tumbling was entitled 
cubistics ; the amusements of the ball they 
comprehended under the term spheristics ; 
the exercises of leaping, foot-racing, the dis- 
cus, the javelin, and wrestling, they in- 
cluded in the word palestrics. 
The moralists and medical men of anti- 
quity, highly approved of those sports 
which were calculated to bring health, 
strength, and grace in their train; but were 
energetic and vehement in their censures 
of the athletes, who wrestled and boxed 
with angry violence, and afterwards in- 
dulged in vicious excesses. 
Leaping a considerable distance with 
ease, was one of the innocent and useful ac- 
quirements of the Grecian youth, which they 
soon attained, but which they appear to have 
despised, as incapable of difficulty ; therefore, 
to render the art laborious, find increase 
their weight, they adopted the practice of 
bearing lead on their heads and shoulders, 
fastening it to their feet, and holding it in 
their hands. A youth, thus loaded, and al- 
most pinioned to the earth by attraction, 
who sprung a greater distance than his com- 
petitors under the same circumstances, was 
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