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To deal out in portions; to distribute; to give; as, the steward dispenses provisions according directions; Nature dispenses her bounties; to dispense medicines. He is delighted to dispense a share of it to all the company. Sir W. Scott.

Want of provisions; [Obs.] Spenser.

Cut deeply into many lobes or divisions; as, a dissected leaf.

r, producing warm debates or angry words; contention in words; partisan and contentious divisions; breach of friendship and union; strife; discord; quarrel. Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them. Acts xv. 2. Debates, dissension, uproars are thy joy. Dryden. A seditious person and raiser-up…

A marking off by visible signs; separation into parts; division. [Obs.] The distinction of tragedy into acts was not known. Dryden.

To separate by definition of terms or logical division of a subject with regard to difference; as, to distinguish sounds into high and low. Moses distinguished the causes of the flood into those that belong to the heavens, and those that belong to the earth. T. Burnet.

e of danger or necessity; as, a ship in distress, from leaking, loss of spars, want of provisions or water, etc.

A division of territory; a defined portion of a state, town, or city, etc., made for administrative, electoral, or other purposes; as, a congressional district, judicial district, land district, school district, etc. To exercise exclusive legislation . . . over such district not exceeding ten miles square. The Constitu…

A division of Lepidoptera, including the butterflies; -- so called because they fly only in the daytime.

To subject to arithmetical division.

One who, or that which, causes division. Hate is of all things the mightiest divider. Milton. Money, the great divider of the world. Swift.

That divides; separating; marking divisions; graduating. Dividing engine, a machine for graduating circles (as for astronomical instruments) or bars (as for scales); also, for spacing off and cutting teeth in wheels. -- Dividing sinker. (Knitting Mach.). See under Sinker.

By division.

Indicating division or distribution. Mede.

A division of chætopod annelids in which the branchiæ are along the back, on each side, or on the parapodia. [See Illusts. under Annelida and Chætopoda.]

es of thoughts, or imaginary transactions, which occupy the mind during sleep; a sleeping vision. Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes. Dryden. I had a dream which was not all a dream. Byron.

A visionary; one lost in wild imaginations or vain schemes of some anticipated good; as, a political dreamer.

Abounding in dreams or given to dreaming; appropriate to, or like, dreams; visionary. "The dreamy dells." Tennyson.

State of being dual or twofold; a twofold division; any system which is founded on a double principle, or a twofold distinction; as:

A division of a poem corresponding to a canto; a poem or song. [R.]