Search the Dictionary

The pluperfect tense; also, a verb in the pluperfect tense.

consisting of two or more of the same kind; as, a plurality of worlds; the plurality of a verb.

The act of polluting, or the state of being polluted (in any sense of the verb); defilement; uncleanness; impurity.

Multiplicity of sounds, as in the reverberations of an echo.

Overbusy; officious. [R.] Heywood.

The state of being overbusy. [R.]

Fully assured; confident; certain; sometimes, overconfident; dogmatic; overbearing; -- said of persons. Some positive, persisting fops we know, That, if once wrong, will needs be always. Pope.

fter, or the state of being placed after. "The postposition of the nominative case to the verb." Mede.

(Mech.) See the Note under Energy. -- Potential mood, or mode (Gram.), that form of the verb which is used to express possibility, liberty, power, will, obligation, or necessity, by the use of may, can, must, might, could, would, or should; as, I may go; he can write.

used by Sir William Hamilton to define propositions having their quantity indicated by a verbal sign; as, all, none, etc.; -- contrasted with preindesignate, defining propositions of which the quantity is not so indicated.

Preponderating; outweighing; overbalancing; -- used literally and figuratively; as, a preponderant weight; of preponderant importance. -- Pre*pon"der*ant*ly, adv.

To outweigh; to overpower by weight; to exceed in weight; to overbalance. An inconsiderable weight, by distance from the center of the balance, will preponderate greater magnitudes. Glanvill.

A word employed to connect a noun or a pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial sense, with some other word; a particle used with a noun or pronoun (in English always in the objective case) to make a phrase limiting some other word; -- so called because usually placed before the word with which it is phrased; as, a bridg…

find a god so present to my prayer. Dryden. Present tense (Gram.), the tense or form of a verb which expresses action or being in the present time; as, I am writing, I write, or I do write.

Used only or chiefly in the preterit or past tenses, as certain verbs.

actice) See under Question, and compare Closure. -- Previous to, before; -- often used adverbially for previously. "Previous to publication." M. Arnold. "A policy . . . his friends had advised previous to 1710." J. H. Newman.

Original; primary; radical; not derived; as, primitive verb in grammar. Primitive axes of coördinate (Geom.), that system of axes to which the points of a magnitude are first referred, with reference to a second set or system, to which they are afterward referred. -- Primitive chord (Mus.), that chord, the lowest note…

the negative side; as, they debated the question pro and con; -- formerly used also as a verb. -- Pros and cons, the arguments or reasons on either side.

of an adjective to a noun in anticipation, or to denote the result, of the action of the verb; as, to strike one dumb.

In general, a declaration, written or verbal, made by one person to another, which binds the person who makes it to do, or to forbear to do, a specified act; a declaration which gives to the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act. For if the inheritance…