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An accidental blowing off of, or other serious damage to, the breechblock of a gun; also, a removal of the breechblock for the purpose of disabling the gun.

An undoing or annulling; destruction. [Obs.] Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. Shak.

To injure; to damage. "None can my life defect." [R.] Troubles of Q. Elizabeth (1639).

step of progression to which a person has arrived; rank or station in life; position. "A dame of high degree." Dryden. "A knight is your degree." Shak. "Lord or lady of high degree." Lowell.

still survived in the deluge. F. Harrison. After me the deluge. (Aprés moi le déluge.) Madame de Pompadour.

A young lady; a damsel; a lady's maid.

To damn; to condemn. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Obtained by derivation; derived; not radical, original, or fundamental; originating, deduced, or formed from something else; secondary; as, a derivative conveyance; a derivative word. Derivative circulation, a modification of the circulation found in some parts of the body, in which the arteries empty directly into the…

r due loves derived to that vile witch's share. Spenser. Derived to us by tradition from Adam to Noah. Jer. Taylor.

Derogatory. [R.] T. Adams.

the scale of genealogy; a generation. No man living is a thousand descents removed from Adam himself. Hooker.

making unsightly; disfigurement. [R.] To substitute jury masts at whatever desightment or damage in risk. London Times.

hattels delivered to him, or in possession, to recover the thing itself, or its value and damages, from the detainer. It is now in a great measure superseded by other remedies.

That which injures or causes damage; mischief; harm; diminution; loss; damage; -- used very generically; as, detriments to property, religion, morals, etc. I can repair That detriment, if such it be. Milton.

Adamantine. [Obs.]

Fundamental principle; axiom; maxim. [Obs.] Sciences concluding from dignities, and principles known by themselves. Sir T. Browne.

Ambiguous; of double meaning. [Obs.] T. Adams.

The manifoldness with which the fundamental units of time, length, and mass are involved in determining the units of other physical quantities. Thus, since the unit of velocity varies directly as the unit of length and inversely as the unit of time, the dimensions of velocity are said to be length ÷ time; the dimension…

Crystallizing under two forms fundamentally different, while having the same chemical composition.

ypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. J. Adams.