Search the Dictionary

A Linnæan order of plants characterized by having ten styles.

Belonging to the Decagynia; having ten styles.

formality; becoming ceremony; seemliness; hence, freedom from obscenity or indecorum; modesty. Observances of time, place, and of decency in general. Burke. Immodest words admit of no defense, For want of decency is want of sense. Roscommon.

Free from immodesty or obscenity; modest.

more than ordinary elegance; to array; to adorn; to embellish. Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency. Job xl. 10. And deck my body in gay ornaments. Shak. The dew with spangles decked the ground. Dryden.

y rhetorical; without solid sense or argument; bombastic; noisy; as, a declamatory way or style.

tation. Hallam. If your master Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him, That majesty, to keep decorum, must No less beg than a kingdom. Shak.

ng; as, deficient parts; deficient estate; deficient strength; deficient in judgment. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety. Macaulay. Deficient number. (Arith.) See under Abundant. -- De*fi"cient-ly, adv.

Not hasty or sudden; slow. Hooker. His enunciation was so deliberate. W. Wirt.

The act or style of utterance; manner of speaking; as, a good delivery; a clear delivery.

Pertaining to, or in the style of, Demosthenes, the Grecian orator.

n a demure manner; soberly; gravely; -- now, commonly, with a mere show of gravity or modesty. They . . . looked as demurely as they could; for 't was a hanging matter to laugh unseasonably. Dryden.

The state of being demure; gravity; the show of gravity or modesty.

That by which anything is denominated or styled; an epithet; a name, designation, or title; especially, a general name indicating a class of like individuals; a category; as, the denomination of units, or of thousands, or of fourths, or of shillings, or of tons. Those [qualities] which are classed under the denominatio…

de. [Obs.] How may weak mortal ever hope to file His unsmooth tongue, and his deprostrate style. G. Fletcher.

d upon; result of deliberation; purpose; conclusion formed; fixed resolution. So bloodthirsty a determination to obtain convictions. Hallam.

An instrument, formerly much used for showing the time of day from the shadow of a style or gnomon on a graduated arc or surface; esp., a sundial; but there are lunar and astral dials. The style or gnomon is usually parallel to the earth's axis, but the dial plate may be either horizontal or vertical.…

Distrust of one's self or one's own powers; lack of self-reliance; modesty; modest reserve; bashfulness. It is good to speak on such questions with diffidence. Macaulay. An Englishman's habitual diffidence and awkwardness of adress. W. Irving.

Poured out; widely spread; not restrained; copious; full; esp., of style, opposed to concise or terse; verbose; prolix; as, a diffuse style; a diffuse writer. A diffuse and various knowledge of divine and human things. Milton.

state of being diffusive or diffuse; extensiveness; expansion; dispersion. Especially of style: Diffuseness; want of conciseness; prolixity. The fault that I find with a modern legend, it its diffusiveness. Addison.