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To dig; to open (the ground) as with a spade. Delve of convenient depth your thrashing flooDryden.

Half relief; sculpture in relief of which the figures project from the background by one half their full roundness.

ected the fabric of my book would long since have been demolished, and laid even with the ground. Tillotson.

The desertion by a party to any pleading of the ground taken by him in his last antecedent pleading, and the adoption of another. Bouvier.

; to feed; to graze; also, to use for pasture. [R.] Cattle, to graze and departure in his grounds. Blackstone. A right to cut wood upon or departure land. Washburn.

To make poor; to impoverish. Liming does not depauperate; the ground will last long, and bear large grain. Mortimer. Humility of mind which depauperates the spirit. Jer. Taylor.

A matter depending, or in suspense, and still to be determined; ground of controversy or quarrel. [Obs.] To go on now with my first dependence. Beau. & Fl.

Lying flat; -- said of a stem or leaf which lies close to the ground.

s. The affections which these exposed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion. Jer. Taylor.

A chord, not fundamental, but obtained from another by inversion; or, vice versa, a ground tone or root implied in its harmonics in an actual chord.

To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence; -- with on or upon. And on the suitors let thy wrath descend. Pope.

The uncovering of anything buried or covered with earth; a taking out of the earth or ground. Woodward.

In any animal, esp. of the Herbivora, a rudimentary claw or small hoof not reaching the ground. Some cut off the dewclaws [of greyhounds]. J. H. Walsh.

dew; resembling, consisting of, or moist with, dew. A dewy mist Went and watered all the ground. Milton. When dewy eve her curtain draws. Keble.

A pointed implement used to make holes in the ground in which no set out plants or to plant seeds.

One who, or that which, dibbles, or makes holes in the ground for seed.

her sharp instrument; to pierce, open, or loosen, as if with a spade. Be first to dig the ground. Dryden.

The state of being dimpled, or marked with gentle depressions. [R.] The ground's most gentle dimplement. Mrs. Browning.

To reduce from the privileges of a forest to the state of common ground; to exempt from forest laws. By charter 9 Henry III. many forests were disafforested. Blackstone.

Reasoning; proceeding from one ground to another, as in reasoning; argumentative. Reason is her being, Discursive or intuitive. Milton. -- Dis*cur"sive*ly, adv. -- Dis*cur"sive*ness, n.