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descent; falling or sinking; declension; degradation. Oblique descension (Astron.), the degree or arc of the equator which descends, with a celestial object, below the horizon of an oblique sphere. -- Right descension, the degree or arc of the equator which descends below the horizon of a right sphere at the same tim…

A step or remove downward in any scale of gradation; a degree in the scale of genealogy; a generation. No man living is a thousand descents removed from Adam himself. Hooker.

To miss; to regret. [Obs.] She shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies. Jer. Taylor.

hopelessness; complete despondency. We in dark dreams are tossing to and fro, Pine with regret, or sicken with despair. Keble. Before he [Bunyan] was ten, his sports were interrupted by fits of remorse and despair. Macaulay.

To free from that which infolds or envelops; to unfold; to lay open by degrees or in detail; to make visible or known; to disclose; to produce or give forth; as, to develop theories; a motor that develops 100 horse power. These serve to develop its tenets. Milner. The 20th was spent in strengthening our position and de…

similarity; unlikeness; variation; as, a difference of quality in paper; a difference in degrees of heat, or of light; what is the difference between the innocent and the guilty Differencies of administration, but the same Lord. 1 Cor. xii. 5.

ifferent kinds of food or drink; different states of health; different shapes; different degrees of excellence. Men are as different from each other, as the regions in which they are born are different. Dryden.

Elevated rank; honorable station; high office, political or ecclesiastical; degree of excellence; preferment; exaltation. Macaulay. And the king said, What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this Esth. vi. 3. Reuben, thou art my firstborn, . . . the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. Gen.…

The degree of manifoldness of a quantity; as, time is quantity having one dimension; volume has three dimensions, relative to extension.

r of making or becoming less; state of being diminished; reduction in size, quantity, or degree; -- opposed to augmentation or increase.

y under seal, conferring some privilege, honor, or power; a document bearing record of a degree conferred by a literary society or educational institution.

Evil in great degree; dreadful; dismal; horrible; terrible; lamentable. Dire was the tossing, deep the groans. Milton. Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire. Milton.

ich is disagreeable to one is many times agreeable to another, or disagreeable in a less degree. Wollaston.

Hence, some degree of dishonor or disesteem; ill repute; reproach; -- applied to persons or things. It is the duty of every Christian to be concerned for the reputation or discredit his life may bring on his profession. Rogers.

The state of being concave, or like a dish, or the degree of such concavity; as, the dish of a wheel.

Matching any one in marriage under his or her degree; injurious union with something of inferior excellence; a lowering in rank or estimation. [Eng.] And thought that match a foul disparagement. Spenser.

To withdraw praise from; to notice with disapprobation or some degree of censure; to disparage; to blame. Dispraising the power of his adversaries. Chaucer. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with him. Shak.

unfitly. To shape my legs of an unequal size; To disproportion me in every part. Shak. A degree of strength altogether disproportioned to the extent of its territory. Prescott.

Want of relish; dislike (of the palate or of the mind); distaste; a slight degree of disgust; as, a disrelish for some kinds of food. Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told of their duty. Burke.

mate constituents are separated or evolved in new compounds, -- usually requiring a high degree of heat; as, the destructive distillation of soft coal or of wood. -- Dry distillation, the distillation of substances by themselves, or without the addition of water or of other volatile solvent; as, the dry distillation o…