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Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Shak. A fool hath no delight in understanding. Prov. xviii. 2.

To portray to the mind or understanding by words; to set forth; to describe. Customs or habits delineated with great accuracy. Walpole.

Aberration of mind; delirium. J. Motley. Deliration or alienation of the understanding. Mede.

epending, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclined to superstition. Burke.

evelops into a well-formed animal; the mind develops year by year. Nor poets enough to understand That life develops from within. Mrs. Browning.

One who is wholly devoted; esp., one given wholly to religion; one who is superstitiously given to religious duties and ceremonies; a bigot. While Father Le Blanc was very devout he was not a devotee. A. S. Hardy.

Something difficult; a thing hard to do or to understand; that which occasions labor or perplexity, and requires skill perseverance to overcome, solve, or achieve; a hard enterprise; an obstacle; an impediment; as, the difficulties of a science; difficulties in theology. They lie under some difficulties by reason of th…

dissemination; circulation; dispersion. A diffusion of knowledge which has undermined superstition. Burke.

o reduce to a plan or method; to receive in the mind and consider carefully; to get an understanding of; to comprehend. Feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer. Sir H. Sidney. How shall this bosom multiplied digest The senate's courtesy Shak.

of weak perception; obtuse. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. Job xvii. 7. The understanding is dim. Rogers.

en are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves or artifice, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. J. Adams.

To see by the eye or by the understanding; to perceive and recognize; as, to discern a difference. And [I] beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding. Prov. vii. 7. Our unassisted sight . . . is not acute enough to discern the minute texture of visible objects. Beattie…

Capable of being discerned by the eye or the understanding; as, a star is discernible by the eye; the identity of difference of ideas is discernible by the understanding. The effect of the privations and sufferings . . . was discernible to the last in his temper and deportment. Macaulay.

tes deformity in the body; the studies of youth should not be disproportional to their understanding.

So separated as not to be confounded with any other thing; not liable to be misunderstood; not confused; well-defined; clear; as, we have a distinct or indistinct view of a prospect. Relation more particular and distinct. Milton.

ide mentally or morally. Wrath and malice, envy and revenge, do darken and distort the understandings of men. Tillotson.

Deprived of wits or understanding; distracted. [Obs.] Drayton.

To turn aside. [Obs.] The redcross knight diverst, but forth rode Britomart. Spenser.

; to give the vertigo to; to confuse. If the jangling of thy bells had not dizzied thy understanding. Sir W. Scott.

Feebleness or imbecility of understanding or mind, particularly in old age; the childishness of old age; senility; as, a venerable man, now in his dotage. Capable of distinguishing between the infancy and the dotage of Greek literature. Macaulay.