Search the Dictionary

Fixed or determined by nature; pertaining to the constitution of a thing; belonging to native character; according to nature; essential; characteristic; not artifical, foreign, assumed, put on, or acquired; as, the natural growth of animals or plants; the natural motion of a gravitating body; natural strength or dispos…

Any melody determined by inviolable rules. [Obs.]

To determine, adjudge, or record (a plaintiff) as having dropped his suit, upon his withdrawal or failure to follow it up. "When two are joined in a writ, and one is nonsuited." Z. Swift.

n beset by a spirit from without. Tylor. Whether by obsession or possession, I will not determine. Burton.

ts only were observed, but the nature and relations of whose productive agencies were undetermined; -- so called by the schoolmen. -- Occult sciences, those sciences of the Middle Ages which related to the supposed action or influence of occult qualities, or supernatural powers, as alchemy, magic, necromancy, and astr…

Not settled or adjusted; not decided or determined; not closed or withdrawn from consideration; as, an open account; an open question; to keep an offer or opportunity open.

"The employment of subjective and objective mechanical means to determine the accomodative and refractive states of the eye and the scope of its function in general."

An ancient form of test to determine guilt or innocence, by appealing to a supernatural decision, -- once common in Europe, and still practiced in the East and by savage tribes.

To rule over; to govern or determine by superior authority.

One who, or that which, controls, governs, or determines. Sir P. Sidney.

d, bond, etc., as when a defendant in court prays oyer of a writing. Blackstone. Oyer and terminer (Law), a term used in England in commissions directed to judges of assize about to hold court, directing them to hear and determine cases brought before them. In the U.S. the phrase is used to designate certain criminal c…

The ratio of the three crystallographic axes which determines the position of any plane; also, the fundamental axial ratio for a given species.

2. "Provided no indirect act pass upon our prayers to define them." Jer. Taylor. (b) To determine concerning; to give judgment or sentence upon. "We may not pass upon his life." Shak. -- To pass off, to go away; to cease; to disappear; as, an agitation passes off. -- To pass over, to go from one side or end to the ot…

y; an investigator in pathology; as, the pathologist of a hospital, whose duty it is to determine the causes of the diseases.

Firmly determined; unawed. [Poetic] Shak. Peremptory challenge (Law) See under Challenge. -- Peremptory mandamus, a final and absolute mandamus. -- Peremptory plea, a plea by a defendant tending to impeach the plaintiff's right of action; a plea in bar.

A portion of time as limited and determined by some recurring phenomenon, as by the completion of a revolution of one of the heavenly bodies; a division of time, as a series of years, months, or days, in which something is completed, and ready to recommence and go on in the same order; as, the period of the sun, or the…

idered, the system is univariant, that is, the fixing of one condition, as temperature, determines the others.

Pitched; fixed; determined. [Obs.] [His horse] pight him on the pommel of his head. Chaucer. I found him pight to do it. Shak.

The relative acuteness or gravity of a tone, determined by the number of vibrations which produce it; the place of any tone upon a scale of high and low.

A bent tube used to determine the velocity of running water, by placing the curved end under water, and observing the height to which the fluid rises in the tube; a kind of current meter.