Search the Dictionary

To destroy a considerable part of; as, to decimate an army in battle; to decimate a people by disease.

The destruction of any large proportion, as of people by pestilence or war. Milman.

To lead forth or out. [Obs.] A people deducted out of the city of Philippos. Udall.

gree; intensely; as, deeply skilled in ethics. He had deeply offended both his nobles and people. Bacon. He sighed deeply in his spirit. Mark viii. 12.

One elected by the people of a territory to represent them in Congress, where he has the right of debating, but not of voting.

Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people.

One who is an adherent or advocate of democracy, or government by the people. Whatever they call him, what care I, Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat. Tennyson.

to democracy; favoring democracy, or constructed upon the principle of government by the people.

Of or pertaining to the people; popular; common. Demotic alphabet or character, a form of writing used in Egypt after six or seven centuries before Christ, for books, deeds, and other such writings; a simplified form of the hieratic character; -- called also epistolographic character, and enchorial character. See Encho…

The department of knowledge relative to the care and culture of the people; sociology in its broadest sense; -- in library cataloguing.

habitants, whether by death or by expulsion; to reduce greatly the populousness of; to dispeople; to unpeople. Where is this viper, That would depopulate the city Shak.

One who depopulates; a dispeopler.

uardians, my depositaries. Shak. The depositaries of power, who are mere delegates of the people.J.S. Mill.

ly; -- formerly called Corps Législatif. Its members, called deputies, are elected by the people voting in districts.

An object of derision or scorn; a laughing-stock. I was a derision to all my people. Lam. iii. 14.

llness and particularity; to discourse at large. A virtuous man should be pleased to find people descanting on his actions. Addison.

Despondency. The people, when once infected, lose their relish for happiness [and] saunter about with looks of despondence. Goldsmith.

The form of speech of a limited region or people, as distinguished from ether forms nearly related to it; a variety or subdivision of a language; speech characterized by local peculiarities or specific circumstances; as, the Ionic and Attic were dialects of Greece; the Yorkshire dialect; the dialect of the learned. In…

e state of being dilapidated, reduced to decay, partially ruined, or squandered. Tell the people that are relived by the dilapidation of their public estate. Burke.

The principal meal of the day, eaten by most people about midday, but by many (especially in cities) at a later hour.