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mb from limb; to dilacerate; to disjoin member from member; to tear or cut in pieces; to break up. Fowls obscene dismembered his remains. Pope. A society lacerated and dismembered. Gladstone. By whose hands the blow should be struck which would dismember that once mighty empire. Buckle.

To throw or remove from the carriage, or from that on which a thing is mounted; to break the carriage or wheels of, and render useless; to deprive of equipments or mountings; -- said esp. of artillery.

the organic structure or regular system of (a government, a society, a party, etc.); to break up (what is organized); to throw into utter disorder; to disarrange. Lyford . . . attempted to disorganize the church. Eliot (1809).

or for. [Obs.] "Conniving and dispensing with open and common adultery." Milton. (c) To break or go back from, as one's word. [Obs.] Richardson.

s.] Sir T. Browne. Do dispositively what Moses is recorded to have done literally, . . . break all the ten commandments at once. Boyle.

To break asunder; to rend. Thomson.

Causing, or tending to cause, disruption; caused by disruption; breaking through; bursting; as, the disruptive discharge of an electrical battery. Nichol.

To shiver or break in pieces. [Obs.]

The process by which a compound body breaks up into simpler constituents; -- said particularly of the action of heat on gaseous or volatile substances; as, the dissociation of the sulphur molecules; the dissociation of ammonium chloride into hydrochloric acid and ammonia.

The dispersion of an assembly by terminating its sessions; the breaking up of a partnership. Dissolution is the civil death of Parliament. Blackstone.

To separate into competent parts; to disorganize; to break up; hence, to bring to an end by separating the parts, sundering a relation, etc.; to terminate; to destroy; to deprive of force; as, to dissolve a partnership; to dissolve Parliament. Lest his ungoverned rage dissolve the life. Shak.

Melting; breaking up; vanishing. -- Dis*solv"ing*ly, adv. Dissolving view, a picture which grows dim and is gradually replaced by another on the same field; -- an effect produced by magic lanterns.

some one direction; to lengthen out; to stretch. [R.] But say, what mean those colored streaks in heaven Distended as the brow of God appeased Milton.

Sudden display; flash; glitter. [R.] A smile . . . breaks out with the brightest distriction. Collier.

To alienate in spirit; to break the concord of. Go on both in hand, O nations, never be disunited, be the praise . . . of all posterity! Milton.

To break friendship; to fall out. Shak.

of praise to God designed to be sung or chanted by the choir or the congregation. David breaks forth into these triumphant praises and doxologies. South.

To break, as land, by drawing a drag or harrow over it; to harrow; to draw a drag along the bottom of, as a stream or other water; hence, to search, as by means of a drag. Then while I dragged my brains for such a song. Tennyson.

A housebreaker or thief. [Obs.] Old Play (1631).

To break and train for use, as a horse or other animal. To dress up or out, to dress elaborately, artificially, or pompously. "You see very often a king of England or France dressed up like a Julius Cæsar." Addison. -- To dress a ship (Naut.), to ornament her by hoisting the national colors at the peak and mastheads,…