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en to the water and ducked; -- called also a castigatory, a tumbrel, and a trebuchet; and often, but not so correctly, a ducking stool. Sir. W. Scott.

efined; well-educated. The sense of beauty in nature, even among cultured people, is less often met with than other mental endowments. I. Taylor. The cunning hand and cultured brain. Whittier.

A shake or fissure between the annual rings of a tree, found oftenest near the roots.

ten lore. E. A. Poe. Abstruse investigations in recondite branches of learning or sciense often bring to light curious results. C. J. Smith. Curious arts, magic. [Obs.] Many . . . which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them. Acts xix. 19.

and currency, and not after intrinsic value. Bacon. The bare name of Englishman . . . too often gave a transient currency to the worthless and ungrateful. W. Irving.

wer end deeper than a sloop of the same length, and depends for stability on a deep keel, often heavily weighted with lead.

A violent storm, often of vast extent, characterized by high winds rotating about a calm center of low atmospheric pressure. This center moves onward, often with a velocity of twenty or thirty miles an hour.

ser Bear, to which, as containing the polar star, the eyes of mariners and travelers were often directed.

dea, mostly fossils of the Paleozoic rocks. They were usually roundish or egg-shaped, and often unsymmetrical; some were sessile, others had short stems.

The language of the Czechs (often called Bohemian), the harshest and richest of the Slavic languages.

- called also obelisk. Dagger moth (Zoöl.), any moth of the genus Apatalea. The larvæ are often destructive to the foliage of fruit trees, etc. -- Dagger of lath, the wooden weapon given to the Vice in the old Moralities. Shak. -- Double dagger, a mark of reference [||] which comes next in order after the dagger. --…

To delay unnecessarily; to while away. Dallying off the time with often skirmishes. Knolles.

To throw with violence or haste; to cause to strike violently or hastily; -- often used with against. If you dash a stone against a stone in the botton of the water, it maketh a sound. Bacon.

A European bird of the Crow family (Corvus monedula), often nesting in church towers and ruins; a jackdaw. The loud daw, his throat displaying, draw The whole assembly of his fellow daws. Waller.

By right; of right; by law; -- often opposed to be facto.

he closing hours of life of one who dies by sickness or the like; the last sickness. That often-quoted passage from Lord Hervey in which the Queen's deathbed is described. Thackeray.

ce, to deliberate; to consider; to discuss or examine different arguments in the mind; -- often followed by on or upon. He presents that great soul debating upon the subject of life and death with his intimate friends. Tatler.

o divert the attention; to while away; to take away as if by deception. These occupations oftentimes deceived The listless hour. Wordsworth.

To make a declaration, or an open and explicit avowal; to proclaim one's self; -- often with for or against; as, victory declares against the allies. Like fawning courtiers, for success they wait, And then come smiling, and declare for fate. Dryden.

The act of setting apart or consecrating to a divine Being, or to a sacred use, often with religious solemnities; solemn appropriation; as, the dedication of Solomon's temple.