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angle or space which can not be seen or defended from behind the parapet. -- Dead block, either of two wooden or iron blocks intended to serve instead of buffers at the end of a freight car. -- Dead calm (Naut.), no wind at all. -- Dead center, or Dead point (Mach.), either of two points in the orbit of a crank, at…

Wanting the sense of hearing, either wholly or in part; unable to perceive sounds; hard of hearing; as, a deaf man. Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf. Shak.

A person who is deaf and dumb; one who, through deprivation or defect of hearing, has either failed the acquire the power of speech, or has lost it. [See Illust. of Dactylology.] Deaf-mutes are still so called, even when, by artificial methods, they have been taught to speak imperfectly.

and man, raiseth his own credit with both, by pretending greater interest than he hath in either. Bacon.

Highly valued; greatly beloved; cherished; precious. "Hear me, dear lady." Shak. Neither count I my life dear unto myself. Acts xx. 24. And the last joy was dearer than the rest. Pope. Dear as remember'd kisses after death. Tennyson.

The cessation of all vital phenomena without capability of resuscitation, either in animals or plants.

The state of being deceived or misled. There is one thing relating either to the action or enjoyments of man in which he is not liable to deception. South.

The angular distance of any object from the celestial equator, either northward or southward.

ocess of boiling anything in a watery fluid to extract its virtues. In decoction . . . it either purgeth at the top or settleth at the bottom. Bacon.

With decreasing volume of sound; -- a direction to performers, either written upon the staff (abbreviated Dec., or Decresc.), or indicated by the sign.

Having the force of a decree; determining. The will of God is either decretive or perceptive. Bates.

anting in something; incomplete; lacking a part; deficient; imperfect; faulty; -- applied either to natural or moral qualities; as, a defective limb; defective timber; a defective copy or account; a defective character; defective rules.

An imaginary circle surrounding the earth, in whose periphery either the heavenly body or the center of the heavenly body's epicycle was supposed to be carried round.

That condition of a tissue or an organ in which its vitality has become either diminished or perverted; a substitution of a lower for a higher form of structure; as, fatty degeneration of the liver.

ntly dehort us from unbelief. Bp. Ward. "Exhort" remains, but dehort, a word whose place neither "dissuade" nor any other exactly supplies, has escaped us. Trench.

the quickness and slowness of the succession of those ideas, . . . beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten. Locke.

That which one merits or deserves, either of good or ill; desert. [Obs.] By many benefits and demerits whereby they obliged their adherents, [they] acquired this reputation. Holland.

The conveyance or transfer of an estate, either in fee for life or for years, most commonly the latter. Bouvier.

That part of a painting, engraving, or the like, which is neither in full darkness nor full light.

serious; making a show of gravity. A cat lay, and looked so demure, as if there had been neither life nor soul in her. L'Estrange. Miss Lizzy, I have no doubt, would be as demure and coquettish, as if ten winters more had gone over her head. Miss Mitford.