Search the Dictionary

able; not decided; not easy to be defined, classed, or named; as, a doubtful case, hue, claim, title, species, and the like. Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good. Shak. Is it a great cruelty to expel from our abode the enemy of our peace, or even the doubtful friend [i. e., one as to whose sincerity there may be doub…

l Fancy colored it and formed a dream. Pope. It is not them a mere dream, but a very real aim which they propose. J. C. Shairp.

Dress; raiment; especially, ornamental habiliment or attire. B. Jonson.

The tendency of an act, argument, course of conduct, or the like; object aimed at or intended; intention; hence, also, import or meaning of a sentence or discourse; aim. He has made the drift of the whole poem a compliment on his country in general. Addison. Now thou knowest my drift. Sir W. Scott.

Having no drift or direction; without aim; purposeless.

To press forward; to aim, or tend, to a point; to make an effort; to strive; -- usually with at. Let them therefore declare what carnal or secular interest he drove at. South.

Justly claimed as a right or property; proper; suitable; becoming; appropriate; fit. Her obedience, which is due to me. Shak. With dirges due, in sad array, Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne. Gray.

Performing, or ready to perform, the duties required by one who has the right to claim submission, obedience, or deference; submissive to natural or legal superiors; obedient, as to parents or superiors; as, a dutiful son or daughter; a dutiful ward or servant; a dutiful subject.

practice; to push to its results. -- To take effect, to become operative, to accomplish aims. Shak.

An exertion of strength or power, whether physical or mental, in performing an act or aiming at an object; more or less strenuous endeavor; struggle directed to the accomplishment of an object; as, an effort to scale a wall. We prize the stronger effort of his power. Pope.

e in difficulties concerning money matters; to incumber with debt; to beset with urgent claims or demands; -- said of a person or his affairs; as, a man or his business is embarrassed when he can not meet his pecuniary engagements.

more important than accent, that the customary seat of the latter is changed, when the claims of emphasis require it. E. Porter.

an army or a company traveling. The host of the Philistines encamped in the valley of Rephaim. 1 Chron. xi. 15.

To load with debts, or other legal claims; as, to encumber an estate with mortgages.

The object aimed at in any effort considered as the close and effect of exertion; ppurpose; intention; aim; as, to labor for private or public ends. Losing her, the end of living lose. Dryden. When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end. Coleridge.

ight, so engraven in the hearts of our ancestors, and by them so constantly enjoyed and claimed, as that it needed not enrolling. Milton. All the citizen capable of bearing arms enrolled themselves. Prescott.

To give a claim to; to qualify for, with a direct object of the person, and a remote object of the thing; to furnish with grounds for seeking or claiming with success; as, an officer's talents entitle him to command.

To make a formal statement of; to announce; to proclaim; to declare, as a truth. The terms in which he enunciates the great doctrines of the gospel. Coleridge.

The act of enunciating, announcing, proclaiming, or making known; open attestation; declaration; as, the enunciation of an important truth. By way of interpretation and enunciation. Jer. Taylor.

One who enunciates or proclaims.