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chosen, and commissioned to represent others, as in a convention, in Congress, etc.; the collective body of delegates; as, the delegation from Massachusetts; a deputation.

Collectively, the people, regarded as the source of government. Milton.

A collection or body of directions, rules, or ordinances; esp., a book of directions for the conduct of worship; as, the Directory used by the nonconformists instead of the Prayer Book.

To pay out; to expend; -- usually from a public fund or treasury. The duty of collecting and disbursing his revenues. Macaulay. Disbursing officer, an officer in any department of the public service who is charged with the duty of paying out public money.

and cause to disappear; -- used esp. of the dispersion of things that can never again be collected or restored. Dissipated those foggy mists of error. Selden. I soon dissipated his fears. Cook. The extreme tendency of civilization is to dissipate all intellectual energy. Hazlitt.

Used as a symbol of the holder of a distaff; hence, a woman; women, collectively. His crown usurped, a distaff on the throne. Dryden. Some say the crozier, some say the distaff was too busy. Howell.

dealing out. Distributing past office, an office where the mails for a large district are collected to be assorted according to their destination and forwarded.

Expressing separation; denoting a taking singly, not collectively; as, a distributive adjective or pronoun, such as each, either, every; a distributive numeral, as (Latin) bini (two by two). Distributive operation (Math.), any operation which either consists of two or more parts, or works upon two or more things, and w…

By distribution; singly; not collectively; in a distributive manner.

A book; esp., a collection of poems written by one author; as, the divan of Hafiz. [Persia]

ts of men are represented by any species of conventional mark or symbol. Saint Luke . . . collected them from such documents and testimonies as he . . . judged to be authentic. Paley.

A collection of twelve objects; a tale or set of twelve; with or without of before the substantive which follows. "Some six or seven dozen of Scots." "A dozen of shirts to your back." "A dozen sons." "Half a dozen friends." Shak.

r from any part of it, or from a military post; also from any district, or any company or collection of persons, or from the people at large; also, the body of men thus drafted. Several of the States had supplied the deficiency by drafts to serve for the year. Marshall.

rray; to draw near, nigh, or towards, to approach; to draw together, to come together, to collect.

their beds. (b) A dredging machine. (c) An iron frame, with a fine net attached, used in collecting animals living at the bottom of the sea.

A collection of loose earth and rocks, or boulders, which have been distributed over large portions of the earth's surface, especially in latitudes north of forty degrees, by the agency of ice.

A collection of objects that are driven; a mass of logs to be floated down a river. [Colloq.]

An unnatural collection of serous fluid in any serous cavity of the body, or in the subcutaneous cellular tissue. Dunglison.

A collection of cattle driven, or cattle collected for driving; a number of animals, as oxen, sheep, or swine, driven in a body.

A yard where dung is collected.