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To pass down by inheritance; to lapse. [Obs.] Which Anne derived alone the right, before all other, Of the delapsed crown from Philip. Drayton.

To put off; to defer; to procrastinate; to prolong the time of or before. My lord delayeth his coming. Matt. xxiv. 48.

motic alphabet or character, a form of writing used in Egypt after six or seven centuries before Christ, for books, deeds, and other such writings; a simplified form of the hieratic character; -- called also epistolographic character, and enchorial character. See Enchorial.

Proclamation; announcement; a publishing. [Obs.] Public . . . denunciation of banns before marriage. Bp. Hall.

arate, as from a place or a person; to withdraw; -- opposed to arrive; -- often with from before the place, person, or thing left, and for or to before the destination. I will depart to mine own land. Num. x. 30. Ere thou from hence depart. Milton. He which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart. Shak.…

To discharge. [Obs.] As soon as the party . . . before our justices shall be depeached. Hakluyt.

The act of bringing before the mind; presentation. The influence of princes upon the dispositions of their courts needs not the deposition of their examples, since it hath the authority of a known principle. W. Montagu.

To depurate; to purify. [Obs.] He shall first be depured and cleansed before that he shall be laid up for pure gold in the treasures of God. Sir T. More.

Derby Day, the day of the annual race for the Derby stakes, -- Wednesday of the week before Whitsuntide.

To abandon a service without leave; to quit military service without permission, before the expiration of one's term; to abscond. The soldiers . . . deserted in numbers. Bancroft.

To intend or purpose; -- usually with for before the remote object, but sometimes with to. Ask of politicians the end for which laws were originally designed. Burke. He was designed to the study of the law. Dryden.

e in dark dreams are tossing to and fro, Pine with regret, or sicken with despair. Keble. Before he [Bunyan] was ten, his sports were interrupted by fits of remorse and despair. Macaulay.

; discontinuance of practice, custom, or fashion. The desuetude abrogated the law, which, before, custom had established. Jer. Taylor.

ascertainably. The principles of religion are already either determinately true or false, before you think of them. Tillotson.

To fix the boundaries of; to mark off and separate. [God] hath determined the times before appointed. Acts xvii. 26.

veloped itself into a real compound. J. Peile. All insects . . . acquire the jointed legs before the wings are fully developed. Owen.

The governor of Algiers; -- so called before the French conquest in 1830.

A prefix denoting through; also, between, apart, asunder, across. Before a vowel dia- becomes di-; as, diactinic; dielectric, etc.

g numbers or letters upon them. These plates must be adjusted in a certain determined way before the lock can be operated. -- Dial plate, the plane or disk of a dial or timepiece on which lines and figures for indicating the time are placed.

ses with brilliant pearly luster; -- so named on account of its decrepitating when heated before the blowpipe.