Search the Dictionary

Hazard; danger; peril; exposure to loss, injury, or destruction. The imminent and constant risk of assassination, a risk which has shaken very strong nerves. Macaulay.

Gnawing; biting; corroding; (Med.) applied to a destructive variety of cancer or ulcer.

change of anything as destroys it, or entirely defeats its object, or unfits it for use; destruction; overthrow; as, the ruin of a ship or an army; the ruin of a constitution or a government; the ruin of health or hopes. "Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!" Gray.

Causing, or tending to cause, ruin; destructive; baneful; pernicious; as, a ruinous project. After a night of storm so ruinous. Milton.

Malicious waste or destruction of an employer's property or injury to his interests by workmen during labor troubles.

ad sense, as to evil, vengeance, curse, or the like; accursed; baleful. [Archaic] But, to destruction sacred and devote. Milton.

Destruction or surrender of anything for the sake of something else; devotion of some desirable object in behalf of a higher object, or to a claim deemed more pressing; hence, also, the thing so devoted or given up; as, the sacrifice of interest to pleasure, or of pleasure to interest.

Salt-marsh caterpillar (Zoöl.), an American bombycid moth (Spilosoma acreæ which is very destructive to the salt-marsh grasses and to other crops. Called also wooly bear. See Illust. under Moth, Pupa, and Woolly bear, under Woolly. -- Salt-marsh fleabane (Bot.), a strong-scented composite herb (Pluchea camphorata) wi…

The act of saving; preservation or deliverance from destruction, danger, or great calamity.

A hot and destructive wind that sometimes blows, in Turkey, from the desert. It is identical with the simoom of Arabia and the kamsin of Syria.

A very destructive scale insect (Aspidiotus perniciosus) that infests the apple, pear, and other fruit trees. So called because first introduced into the United States at San José, California.

ia. They construct firm tubes of agglutinated sand on rocks and shells, and are sometimes destructive to oysters.

To make safe; to procure the safety of; to preserve from injury, destruction, or evil of any kind; to rescue from impending danger; as, to save a house from the flames. God save all this fair company. Chaucer. He cried, saying, Lord, save me. Matt. xiv. 30. Thou hast . . . quitted all to save A world from utter loss. M…

One who saves, preserves, or delivers from destruction or danger.

to plan; to design; to project; to plot. That wickedness which schemed, and executed, his destruction. G. Stuart.

Risk of injury, destruction, or loss by the sea, or while at sea.

ry pain to that seared conscience. Macaulay. The discipline of war, being a discipline in destruction of life, is a discipline in callousness. Whatever sympathies exist are seared. H. Spencer.

The preservation of one's self from destruction or injury.

writ; the putting in several or separate pleas or answers by two or more disjointly; the destruction of the unity of interest in a joint estate. Bouvier.

Destructive; ruinous; disgraceful. [Obs.] -- Shend"ful*ly, adv. [Obs.] Fabyan.