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To give new assurance of the truth of; to render certain; to verify; to corroborate; as, to confirm a rumor. Your eyes shall witness and confirm my tale. Pope. These likelihoods confirm her flight. Shak.

One who, or that which, confirms, establishes, or ratifies; one who corroborates. Shak.

That which corroborates.

Cross; thick; dense; coarse; not elaborated or refined. "Crass and fumid exhalations." Sir. T. Browne. "Crass ignorance" Cudworth.

Exhibiting care or nicety; artfully constructed; elaborate; wrought with elegance or skill. To devise curious works. Ex. xxxv. 32 His body couched in a curious bed. Shak.

Damascus iron, or Damascus twist, metal formed of thin bars or wires of iron and steel elaborately twisted and welded together; used for making gun barrels, etc., of high quality, in which the surface, when polished and acted upon by acid, has a damasc appearance. -- Damascus steel. See Damask steel, under Damask, a.…

Damask silk; silk woven with an elaborate pattern of flowers and the like. "A bed of ancient damask." W. Irving.

; the greater Dionysia were held at Athens in March or April, and were celebrated with elaborate performances of both tragedies and comedies.

xamination or investigation of a matter, with the arguments and facts bearing upon it; elaborate essay; dissertation. For accurate research or grave disquisition he was not well qualified. Macaulay.

A formal or elaborate argumentative discourse, oral or written; a disquisition; an essay; a discussion; as, Dissertations on the Prophecies.

To break and train for use, as a horse or other animal. To dress up or out, to dress elaborately, artificially, or pompously. "You see very often a king of England or France dressed up like a Julius Cæsar." Addison. -- To dress a ship (Naut.), to ornament her by hoisting the national colors at the peak and mastheads,…

eacon as the three necessary degrees of orders, venerates relics and icons, and has an elaborate ritual.

Serving or tending to elaborate; constructing with labor and minute attention to details. Elaborative faculty (Metaph.), the intellectual power of discerning relations and of viewing objects by means of, or in, relations; the discursive faculty; thought.

One who, or that which, elaborates.

Tending to elaborate.

), the decorative tracery on the surface of fan vaulting. -- Fan vaulting (Arch.), an elaborate system of vaulting, in which the ribs diverge somewhat like the rays of a fan, as in Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey. It is peculiar to English Gothic. -- Fan wheel, the wheel of a fan blower. -- Fan window. Same…

Work adorned with frets; ornamental openwork or work in relief, esp. when elaborate and minute in its parts. Heuce, any minute play of light andshade, dark and light, or the like. Banqueting on the turf in the fretwork of shade and sunshine. Macaulay.

The act or process of generalizing. Out of this the universal is elaborated by generification. Sir W. Hamilton.

d and durable, often used in making bas-relief casts, which are colored and mounted in elaborate frames.

curved or straight, and sometimes additional points. The heads were sometimes of very elaborate form. [Written also halbert.]