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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



1,383 words match “DIRE”

DEPENDENCE n.
Subjection to the direction or disposal of another; inability to help or provide for one's self. Reduced to a servile dependence on their mercy. Burke.
DERIVATIVE a.
ification of the circulation found in some parts of the body, in which the arteries empty directly into the veins without the interposition of capillaries. Flint. -- De*riv"a*tive*ly, adv. -- De*riv"a*tive*ness, n.
DESIGNATION n.
Selection and appointment for a purpose; allotment; direction.
DESPOTISM n.
A government which is directed by a despot; a despotic monarchy; absolutism; autocracy. Despotism . . . is the only form of government which may with safety to itself neglect the education of its infant poor. Bp. Horsley.
DETERMINATION n.
Direction or tendency to a certain end; impulsion. Remissness can by no means consist with a constant determination of the will . . . to the greatest apparent good. Locke.
DETERMINATIVE a.
Having power to determine; limiting; shaping; directing; conclusive. Incidents . . . determinative of their course. I. Taylor. Determinative tables (Nat. Hist.), tables presenting the specific character of minerals, plants, etc., to assist in determining the species to which a specimen belongs.
DETERMINE v.
To fix the course of; to impel and direct; -- with a remoter object preceded by to; as, another's will determined me to this course.
DETOUR n.
A turning; a circuitous route; a deviation from a direct course; as, the detours of the Mississippi.
DEVIATION n.
of the ship. -- Deviation of the line of the vertical, the difference between the actual direction of a plumb line and the direction it would have if the earth were a perfect ellipsoid and homogeneous, -- caused by the attraction of a mountain, or irregularities in the earth's density.
DEVIOUS a.
Out of a straight line; winding; varying from directness; as, a devious path or way.
DEVOTE v.
To give up wholly; to addict; to direct the attention of wholly or compound; to attach; -- often with a reflexive pronoun; as, to devote one's self to science, to one's friends, to piety, etc.
DIAGEOTROPISM n.
e tendency of organs (as roots) of plants to assume a position oblique or transverse to a direction towards the center of the earth.
DIAGONAL a.
ter skin of two layers of planking, making angles of about 45º with the keel, in opposite directions. -- Diagonal cleavage. See under Cleavage. -- Diagonal molding (Arch.), a chevron or zigzag molding. -- Diagonal rib. (Arch.) See Cross-springer. -- Diagonal scale, a scale which consists of a set of parallel lines,…
DIAGONALLY adv.
In a diagonal direction.
DIAMETRIC; DIAMETRICAL a.
As remote as possible, as if at the opposite end of a diameter; directly adverse.
DIAMETRICALLY adv.
In a diametrical manner; directly; as, diametrically opposite. Whose principles were diametrically opposed to his. Macaulay.
DICHROISM n.
roperty of presenting different colors by transmitted light, when viewed in two different directions, the colors being unlike in the direction of unlike or unequal axes.
DICHROITE n.
olite; -- so called from its presenting two different colors when viewed in two different directions. See Iolite.
DICTATOR n.
One who dictates; one who prescribes rules and maxims authoritatively for the direction of others. Locke.
DIFFERENTIAL a.
r having two coils or circuits, usually equal, through which currents passing in opposite directions are measured by the difference of their effect upon the needle. -- Differential gearing, a train of toothed wheels, usually an epicyclic train, so arranged as to constitute a differential motion. -- Differential motio…
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