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To render illegitimate; to declare or prove to be born out of wedlock; to bastardize; to illegitimatize. The marriage should only be dissolved for the future, without illegitimating the issue. Bp. Burnet.

To set in a clear light; to exhibit distinctly or conspicuously. Shak. To prove him, and illustrate his high worth. Milton.

Etym: [A word not fully approved, but sometimes used for the adverb ill.]

on of law, when not include virtually; as, war implies fighting. Where a mulicious act is proved, a mulicious intention is implied. Bp. Sherlock. When a man employs a laborer to work for him, . . . the act of hiring implies an obligation and a promise that he shall pay him a reasonable reward for his services. Blacksto…

To disapprove of; to disallow. [Obs.]

The act by which falsehood and forgery are proved; an action brought for the purpose of having some instrument declared false or forged. Bell.

Capable of being improved; susceptible of improvement; admitting of being made better; capable of cultivation, or of being advanced in good qualities. Man is accommodated with moral principles, improvable by the exercise of his faculties. Sir M. Hale. I have a fine spread of improvable lands. Addison.…

Tending to improve, beneficial; growing better. -- Im*prov"ing*ly, adv. Improving lease (Scots Law), an extend lease to induce the tenant to make improvements on the premises.

in their way, are so far from making them quit the work they had begun, that they rather prove incentives to them to go on in it. South.

make use of this acknowledgment of the incongruity of images to the Deity, from thence to prove the incongruity of the worship of them. Bp. Stillingfleet.

To chide; to rebuke; to reprove. [Obs.]

bvious. That truth id productive of utility, and utility indicative of truth, may be thus proved. Bp. Warburton.

olves an absurdity (reductio ad absurdum), or an impossibility; thus, one quantity may be proved equal to another by showing that it can be neither greater nor less. -- Indirect discourse. (Gram.) See Direct discourse, under Direct. -- Indirect evidence, evidence or testimony which is circumstantial or inferential, b…

To give one's name or support to; to sanction; to aid by approval; to approve; as, to indorse an opinion. To indorse in blank, to write one's name on the back of a note or bill, leaving a blank to be filled by the holder.

medicines or means. The seeming inefficacy of censures. Bp. Hall. The inefficacy was soon proved, like that of many similar medicines. James Gregory.

To show; to manifest; to prove. [Obs.] The first part is not the proof of the second, but rather contrariwise, the second inferreth well the first. Sir T. More. This doth infer the zeal I had to see him. Shak.

nd; the infusion of ardor or zeal. Our language has received innumerable elegancies and improvements from that infusion of Hebraisms. Addison.

Ungrateful; thankless; unappreciative. Milton. He proved extremely false and ingrateful to me. Atterbury.

ning, impulse by which an animal is guided to the performance of any action, without of improvement in the method. The resemblance between what originally was a habit, and an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished. Darwin.

trictly attentive; bent; -- said of the mind, thoughts, etc.; as, a mind intent on self-improvement.