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To make foul, impure, or unclean; to defile; to taint; to soil; to desecrate; -- used of physical or moral defilement. The land was polluted with blood. Ps. cvi. 38 Wickedness . . . hath polluted the whole earth. 2 Esd. xv. 6.

The quality or state of being potent; physical or moral power; inherent strength; energy; ability to effect a purpose; capability; efficacy; influence. "Drugs of potency." Hawthorne. A place of potency and away o' the state. Shak.

Producing great physical effects; forcible; powerful' efficacious; as, a potent medicine. "Harsh and potent injuries." Shak. Moses once more his potent rod extends. Milton.

something; capacity for action or performance; capability of producing an effect, whether physical or moral: potency; might; as, a man of great power; the power of capillary attraction; money gives power. "One next himself in power, and next in crime." Milton.

mness or hardness that resists impression, or does not yield to force; impenetrability of physical bodies.

:8:3. -- In proportion, according as; to the degree that. "In proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false." Burke.

es by which the processes of nutrition, secretion, and growth go forward; the so-called " physical basis of life;" the original cell substance, cytoplasm, cytoblastema, bioplasm sarcode, etc.

Of or pertaining to the mind, or its functions and diseases; mental; -- contrasted with physical. Psychical blindness, Psychical deafness (Med.), forms of nervous disease in which, while the senses of sight and hearing remain unimpaired, the mind fails to appreciate the significance of the sounds heard or the images se…

action and consciousness; the science which treats of the relations of the psychical and physical in their conjoint operation in man; the doctrine of the relation of function or dependence between body and soul.

That branch of physical science which treats of the properties, phenomena, or effects of heat; also, a treatise on heat.

- Rack stick, the stick used in a rack lashing. -- To be on the rack, to suffer torture, physical or mental. -- To live at rack and manger, to live on the best at another's expense. [Colloq.] -- To put to the rack, to subject to torture; to torment. A fit of the stone puts a kingto the rack, and makes him as miserabl…

Relating to reason; not physical; mental. Moral philosophy was his chiefest end; for the rational, the natural, and mathematics . . . were but simple pastimes in comparison of the other. Sir T. North.

The power, either inherent or due to some physical action, by which bodies, or the particles of bodies, are made to recede from each other, or to resist each other's nearer approach; as, molecular repulsion; electrical repulsion.

To draw back again; to hold back from acting, proceeding, or advancing, either by physical or moral force, or by any interposing obstacle; to repress or suppress; to keep down; to curb. Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose! Shak.

hindering from motion or action, in any manner; hindrance of the will, or of any action, physical or mental. No man was altogether above the restrains of law, and no man altogether below its protection. Macaulay.

secrets. Ray. Others, accustomed to retired speculations, run natural philosophy into metaphysical notions. Locke.

d (see Judges xiii.), distinguished for his great strength; hence, a man of extraordinary physical strength. Samson post. (a) (Naut.) A strong post resting on the keelson, and supporting a beam of the keelson, and supporting a beam of the deck; also, a temporary or movable pilar carrying a leading block or pulley for v…

Especially, such knowledge when it relates to the physical world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and forces of matter, the qualities and function of living tissues, etc.; -- called also natural science, and physical science. Voltaire hardly left a single corner of the field entirely unexplored in science,…

The power of discerning what is not visible to the physical eye, or of foreseeing future events, esp. such as are of a disastrous kind; the capacity of a seer; prophetic vision. he was seized with a fit of second-sight. Addison. Nor less availed his optic sleight, And Scottish gift of second- sight. Trumbull.…

The science that treats of the physical features of the moon; - - corresponding to physical geography in respect to the earth. "Accurate selenography, or description of the moon." Sir T. Browne.