Search the Dictionary

To have adequate or sufficient courage for any purpose; to be bold or venturesome; not to be afraid; to venture. I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none. Shak. Why then did not the ministers use their new law Bacause they durst not, because they could not. Macaulay. Who dared to sully her sweet l…

To make cowardly; to intimidate; to dispirit; as, to dastardize my courage. Dryden.

Meanly timid; cowardly; base; as, a dastardly outrage.

To repress or subdue the courage of; to check by fear of danger; to cow; to intimidate; to dishearten. Some presences daunt and discourage us. Glanvill.

aulty, mean, or worthless; to clamor against; to blame clamorously; to discredit; to disparage. For small errors they whole plays decry. Dryden. Measures which are extolled by one half of the kingdom are naturally decried by the other. Addison.

at which is deep, especially deep water, as the sea or ocean; an abyss; a great depth. Courage from the deeps of knowledge springs. Cowley. The hollow deep of hell resounded. Milton. Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound. Pope.

One who advocates or encourages defection.

Serving, or suitable, for defense; defensive. [Obs.] With men of courage and with means defendant. Shak.

To disparage. [Obs.]

To cast down the spirits of; to dispirit; to discourage; to dishearten. Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind. Pope.

ting or subverting morals. Especially: The act of corrupting or subverting discipline, courage, hope, etc., or the state of being corrupted or subverted in discipline, courage, etc.; as, the demoralization of an army or navy.

f moral principles on; to render corrupt or untrustworthy in morals, in discipline, in courage, spirit, etc.; to weaken in spirit or efficiency. The demoralizing example of profligate power and prosperous crime. Walsh. The vices of the nobility had demoralized the army. Bancroft.

To deny. [Obs.] That with great rage he stoutly doth denay. Spenser.

To lessen; to detract from; to disparage; to depreciate; -- said of a person or thing. [R.] Anything . . . that should derogate, minish, or hurt his glory and his name. Sir T. More.

The act of derogating, partly repealing, or lessening in value; disparagement; detraction; depreciation; -- followed by of, from, or to. I hope it is no derogation to the Christian religion. Locke. He counted it no derogation of his manhood to be seen to weep. F. W. Robertson.

thine iniquity deserveth. Job xi. 6. John Gay deserved to be a favorite. Thackeray. Encouragement is not held out to things that deserve reprehension. Burke.

Extreme, in a bad sense; outrageous; -- used to mark the extreme predominance of a bad quality. A desperate offendress against nature. Shak. The most desperate of reprobates. Macaulay.

To give up, the will, courage, or spirit; to be thoroughly disheartened; to lose all courage; to become dispirited or depressed; to take an unhopeful view. I should despair, or at least despond. Scott's Letters. Others depress their own minds, [and] despond at the first difficulty. Locke. We wish that . . . desponding…

The state of desponding; loss of hope and cessation of effort; discouragement; depression or dejection of the mind. The unhappy prince seemed, during some days, to be sunk in despondency. Macaulay.

s inevitably and invincibly determined by motives. Its superior suitability to produce courage, as contrasted with scientific physical determinism, is obvious. F. P. Cobbe.