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Skill or dexterity acquired by use; expertness. [R.] "His nice fence and his active practice." Shak.

Tending to invite favor; attracting confidence, favor, esteem, or love; attractive; as, a prepossessing manner. -- Pre`pos*sess"ing*ly, adv.

g by delicacy or grace; attracting, but not striking or impressing; of a pleasing and attractive form a color; having slight or diminutive beauty; neat or elegant without elevation or grandeur; pleasingly, but not grandly, conceived or expressed; as, a pretty face; a pretty flower; a pretty poem. This is the prettiest…

inal faculty or endowment. Nature in your principles hath set [benignity]. Chaucer. Those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering. Stewart.

Serving to produce; fruitful of results; active; as, a prolific brain; a controversy prolific of evil.

division of insects (Zoöl.) reticulated wings, as in the Neuroptera, but having an active pupa state. It includes the dragon flies, May flies, white ants, etc. By some zoölogists they are classed with the Orthoptera; by others, with the Neuroptera.

Attractive; persuasive. J. Morley.

Attractive moral excellence; moral beauty. By the pulchritude of their souls make up what is wanting in the beauty of their bodies. Ray.

Proceeding from putrefaction, or partaking of the putrefactive process; having an offensive smell; stinking; rotten.

To make lively, active, or sprightly; to impart additional energy to; to stimulate; to make quick or rapid; to hasten; to accelerate; as, to quicken one's steps or thoughts; to quicken one's departure or speed.

Nimble; active. [Obs.] " A little quiver fellow." Shak.

A radioactive substance apparently formed as a product from thorium.

An intensely radioactive metallic element found (combined) in minute quantities in pitchblende, and various other uranium minerals. Symbol, Ra; atomic weight, 226.4. Radium was discovered by M. and Mme. Curie, of Paris, who in 1902 separated compounds of it by a tedious process from pitchblende. Its compounds color fla…

Sought out with care; choice. Hence: of rare quality, elegance, or attractiveness; peculiar and refined in kind.

; as, the recumbent posture of the Romans at their meals. Hence, figuratively; Resting; inactive; idle. -- Re*cum"bent*ly, adv.

Directed back; attended by reflection; retroactive; introspective. The reflex act of the soul, or the turning of the intellectual eye inward upon its own actions. Sir M. Hale.

Pertaining to, or possessing, refringency; refractive; refracting; as, a refringent prism of spar. Nichol.

Ruling; governing; regnant. "Some other active regent principle . . . which we call the soul." Sir M. Hale.

That which corrects or counteracts an evil of any kind; a corrective; a counteractive; reparation; cure; -- followed by for or against, formerly by to. What may else be remedy or cure To evils which our own misdeeds have wrought, He will instruct us. Milton.

The act of resisting; opposition, passive or active. When King Demetrius saw that . . . no resistance was made against him, he sent away all his forces. 1. Macc. xi. 38.