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A particular stress of utterance, or force of voice, given in reading and speaking to one or more words whose signification the speaker intends to impress specially upon his audience. The province of emphasis is so much more important than accent, that the customary seat of the latter is changed, when the claims of emp…

way; as, the empire of mind or of reason. "Under the empire of facts." M. Arnold. Another force which, in the Middle Ages, shared with chivalry the empire over the minds of men. A. W. Ward. Celestial empire. See under Celestial. -- Empire City, a common designation of the city of New York. -- Empire State, a common d…

authority to; to delegate power to; to commission; to authorize (having commonly a legal force); as, the Supreme Court is empowered to try and decide cases, civil or criminal; the attorney is empowered to sign an acquittance, and discharge the debtor.

m- before p, b, and m, as in employ, embody, emmew. It is sometimes used to give a causal force, as in enable, enfeeble, to cause to be, or to make, able, or feeble; and sometimes merely gives an intensive force, as in enchasten. See In-.

endow. Temperance gives Nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor. Addison.

An instrument for measuring the force or amount of endosmotic action.

l. Spenser. I say unto you, Love your enemies. Matt. v. 44. The enemy (Mil.), the hostile force. In this sense it is construed with the verb and pronoun either in the singular or the plural, but more commonly in the singular; as, we have met the enemy and he is ours or they are ours. It was difficult in such a country…

Having energy or energies; possessing a capacity for vigorous action or for exerting force; active. "A Being eternally energetic." Grew.

h treats of the laws governing the physical or mechanical, in distinction from the vital, forces, and which comprehends the consideration and general investigation of the whole range of the forces concerned in physical phenomena. [R.]

To use strength in action; to act or operate with force or vigor; to act in producing an effect. Of all men it is true that they feel and energize first, they reflect and judge afterwards. J. C. Shairp.

Strength of expression; force of utterance; power to impress the mind and arouse the feelings; life; spirit; -- said of speech, language, words, style; as, a style full of energy.

To deprive of nerve, force, strength, or courage; to render feeble or impotent; to make effeminate; to impair the moral powers of. A man . . . enervated by licentiousness. Macaulay. And rhyme began t' enervate poetry. Dryden.

Lacking nerve or force; enervated. [R.]

To make feeble; to deprive of strength; to reduce the strength or force of; to weaken; to debilitate. Enfeebled by scanty subsistence and excessive toil. Prescott.

That may be enforced.

Serving to enforce or constrain; compulsive. Marsion. -- En*for"cive*ly, adv.

A thing entailed. Brutality as an hereditary entailment becomes an ever weakening force. R. L. Dugdale.

That which environs or surrounds; surrounding conditions, influences, or forces, by which living forms are influenced and modified in their growth and development. It is no friendly environment, this of thine. Carlyle.

Malice; ill will; spite. [Obs.] If he evade us there, Enforce him with his envy to the people. Shak.

Equality of weight or force; an equipoise or a state of rest produced by the mutual counteraction of two or more forces.