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A naked human skull as the emblem of death; the head of the conventional personification of death. I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth. Shak. Death's-head moth (Zoöl.), a very large European moth (Acherontia atropos), so called from a figure resembling a human skull on the back of the tho…

satisfying; as, a decent fortune; a decent person. A decent retreat in the mutability of human affairs. Burke. -- De"cent*ly, adv. -- De"cent*ness, n.

A group of Mammalia in which a decidua is thrown off with, or after, the fetus, as in the human species.

Capable of being brought down. [Obs.] As if God [were] deducible to human imbecility. State Trials (1649).

railty or weakness; as, the delicacy of a fiber or a thread; delicacy of a hand or of the human form; delicacy of the skin; delicacy of frame.

A small, retired valley; a ravine. In dells and dales, concealed from human sight. Tickell.

A human being possessed by a demon or evil spirit; one whose faculties are directly controlled by a demon. The demoniac in the gospel was sometimes cast into the fire. Bates.

To empty or unload, as the vessels of human system, by bloodletting or by medicine. Copland.

ker. It derogates little from his fortitude, while it adds infinitely to the honor of his humanity. Burke.

lord; especially, an absolute or irresponsible ruler or sovereign. Irresponsible power in human hands so naturally leads to it, that cruelty has become associated with despot and tyrant. C. J. Smith.

son or thing is destined; predetermined state; condition foreordained by the Divine or by human will; fate; lot; doom. Thither he Will come to know his destiny. Shak. No man of woman born, Coward or brave, can shun his destiny. Bryant.

The flesh upon the human throat, especially when with age. [Burlesque] On her withered dewlap pour the ale. Shak.

ry limitations which, according to this philosopher, originate in the constitution of the human intellect.

lix; as, a diffuse style; a diffuse writer. A diffuse and various knowledge of divine and human things. Milton.

aining, whether physical, mental, or moral. Wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity. Bacon. Discipline aims at the removal of bad habits and the substitution of good ones, especially those of order, regularity, and obedience. C. J. Smith.

upted; broken off. A path that is zigzag, discontinuous, and intersected at every turn by human negligence. De Quincey.

inute animals are discoverable only by the help of the microscope; truths discoverable by human industry.

e Jews in their dispersion retained their rites and ceremonies; a great dispersion of the human family took place at the building of Babel. The days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished. Jer. xxv. 34.

The act of dissecting an animal or plant; as, dissection of the human body was held sacrilege till the time of Francis I.

Want of resemblance; unlikeness; dissimilitude; variety; as, the dissimilarity of human faces and forms. Sir W. Jones.