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The act of giving figure or determinate form; determination to a certain form. Bacon.

s to form or mold; to make an image of, either palpable or ideal; also, to fashion into a determinate form; to shape. If love, alas! be pain I bear, No thought can figure, and no tongue declare.Prior.

A small wooden vessel or cask of indeterminate size, -- used for butter, lard, etc. [U.S.]

Shapeless; without a determinate form; wanting regularity of shape. -- Form"less*ly, adv. -- Form"less*ness, n.

power or faculty, as of the soul, or of the intellect; the exertion of an energy of some determinate kind. As the mind opens, and its functions spread. Pope.

rsonal power, called Fate. Sir J. Stephen. Impersonal verb (Gram.), a verb used with an indeterminate subject, commonly, in English, with the impersonal pronoun it; as, it rains; it snows; methinks (it seems to me). Many verbs which are not strictly impersonal are often used impersonally; as, it goes well with him.…

particular enumeration important; -- said of the parts of a flower, and the like. Also, indeterminate. Indefinite article (Gram.), the word a or an, used with nouns to denote any one of a common or general class. -- Indefinite inflorescence. (Bot.) See Indeterminate inflorescence, under Indeterminate. -- Indefinite p…

cteristic mark in distinguishing the species of plants. Milne. Centrifugal inflorescence, determinate inflorescence. -- Centripetal inflorescence, indeterminate inflorescence. See under Determinate, and Indeterminate.

A determinate quantity, to which a variable one continually approaches, and may differ from it by less than any given difference, but to which, under the law of variation, the variable can never become exactly equivalent. Elastic limit. See under Elastic. -- Prison limits, a definite, extent of space in or around a pr…

The line traced by a point which varies its position according to some determinate law; the surface described by a point or line that moves according to a given law. Plane locus, a locus that is a straight line, or a circle. -- Solid locus, a locus that is one of the conic sections.

Not precise or exact; vague; indeterminate; as, a loose style, or way of reasoning. The comparison employed . . . must be considered rather as a loose analogy than as an exact scientific explanation. Whewel.

In the manner or state of an object; as, a determinate idea objectively in the mind.

The arrangement of any determinate number of things, as units, objects, letters, etc., in all possible orders, one after the other; -- called also alternation. Cf. Combination, n., 4.

proposition affirming the possibility of finding such conditions as will render a certain determinate problem indeterminate or capable of innumerable solutions. Playfair.

Having determinate limitations; exactly or sharply defined or stated; definite; exact; nice; not vague or equivocal; as, precise rules of morality. The law in this point is not precise. Bacon. For the hour precise Exacts our parting hence. Milton.

cretely, that which answers the question "How much"; measure in regard to bulk or amount; determinate or comparative dimensions; measure; amount; bulk; extent; size. Hence, in specific uses:

To walk, ride, or sail, from place to place, without any determinate object in view; to roam carelessly or irregularly; to rove; to wander; as, to ramble about the city; to ramble over the world. He that is at liberty to ramble in perfect darkness, what is his liberty better than if driven up and down as a bubble by th…

A determinate method prescribed for performing any operation and producing a certain result; as, a rule for extracting the cube root.

Existing by itself; single; individual. The idea which represents one . . . determinate thing, is called a singular idea, whether simple, complex, or compound. I. Watts.

A tenure of lands and tenements by a certain or determinate service; a tenure distinct from chivalry or knight's service, in which the obligations were uncertain. The service must be certain, in order to be denominated socage, as to hold by fealty and twenty shillings rent. [Written also soccage.]