Crossword-Solution: OVIFORM 7 letters, 3 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 15

Renard's "Dirigible Parachute." In 1889 Commandant Renard, the eminent superintendent of the French Aeronautical Department, exhibited at the Paris Exposition of that year, an apparatus experimented with some years before, which he termed a "dirigible parachute." It consisted of an oviform body to which were pivoted two upright slats carrying above the body nine long superposed flat blades spaced about one-third of their width apart.

Etym: [See Form, n.] Defn: A suffix used to denote in the form or shape of, resembling, etc.; as, valiform; oviform.

The oviform figure of the bowl, hemmed in on three sides by volcanic mountains, and on the fourth by sheets of lava, would at the first glance indicate the site of an extensive crater, whose cone having fallen into a subterranean abyss, had given rise to the singular appearance witnessed.

The country had assumed the uninteresting character inseparable from elevated downs--rich swampy meadows, clothed with camomile, clover, and trefoil, and covered with oxen, horses, and sheep, being intersected by gentle undulations of moor-land, with occasional oviform hills.

These crystals are frequently grouped in the form of a hemisphere, circular, or oviform, solitary or in clusters, forming the different varieties of mamillary and radiated quartz, and, when met with in their pristine beauty, present a very rich and brilliant appearance.