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having the qualities of a shrew; having a scolding disposition; froward; peevish. My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours. Shak. -- Shrew"ish*ly, adv. -- Shrew"ish*ness, n.

Having a disposition or temper habitually sober. -- So"ber-mind`ed*ness, n.

Temper or disposition of mind; mental condition or disposition; intellectual or moral state; -- often in the plural; as, to be cheerful, or in good spirits; to be downhearted, or in bad spirits. God has . . . made a spirit of building succeed a spirit of pulling down. South. A perfect judge will read each work of wit W…

Ill-will or hatred toward another, accompanied with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart; petty malice; grudge; rancor; despite. Pope. This is the deadly spite that angers. Shak.

Proceding from natural feeling, temperament, or disposition, or from a native internal proneness, readiness, or tendency, without constraint; as, a spontaneous gift or proportion.

The court, which used to be the standard of property and correctness of speech. Swift. A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Burke.

xecution of a decree, the progress of vice, the approaches of old age or infirmity. Whose disposition all the world well knows Will not be rubbed nor stopped. Shak.

Hereditary character, quality, or disposition. Intemperance and lust breed diseases, which, propogated, spoil the strain of nation. Tillotson.

The quality or state of being sulky; sullenness; moroseness; as, sulkiness of disposition.

Cheerful; genial; as, a sunny disposition. My decayed fair A sunny look of his would soon repair. Shak.

kind; regularity. Axis of symmetry. (Geom.) See under Axis. -- Respective symmetry, that disposition of parts in which only the opposite sides are equal to each other.

Inclination; will; disposition; desire. [Obs.] They rather counseled you to your talent than to your profit. Chaucer.

Disposition of mind; the constitution of the mind, particularly with regard to the passions and affections; as, a calm temper; a hasty temper; a fretful temper. Remember with what mild And gracious temper he both heared and judged. Milton. The consequents of a certain ethical temper. J. H. Newman.

The quality or state of being testy; fretfulness; petulance. Testiness is a disposition or aptness to be angry. Locke.

The disposition or connection of threads, filaments, or other slender bodies, interwoven; as, the texture of cloth or of a spider's web.

Manner; custom; habit; form of behavior; qualities of mind; disposition; specifically, good qualities; virtues. [Obs.] For her great light Of sapience, and for her thews clear. Chaucer. Evil speeches destroy good thews. Wyclif (1 Cor. xv. 33). To be upbrought in gentle thews and martial might. Spenser.…

Fig.: Material for any structure. Such dispositions are the very errors of human nature; and yet they are the fittest timber to make politics of. Bacon.

To change in nature, disposition, heart, character, or the like; to convert. Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Rom. xii. 2.

A change in disposition, heart, character, or the like; conversion.

Manageable; tractable; hence, moderate; not violent. [Obs.] " A treatable disposition, a strong memory." R. Parr. A kind of treatable dissolution. Hooker. The heats or the colds of seasons are less treatable than with us. Sir W. Temple.