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Expedition; haste; dispatch. [Obs.] Making hither with all due expedience. Shak.

The quality of being expedite; efficient promptness; haste; dispatch; speed; quickness; as to carry the mail with expedition. With winged expedition Swift as the lightning glance.

Intended for a particular purpose; relating to an express; sent on a particular errand; dispatched with special speed; as, an express messenger or train. Also used adverbially. A messenger sent express from the other world. Atterbury. Express color. (Law) See the Note under Color, n., 8.

y state or condition; -- with a following participle. Those things I bid you do; get them dispatched. Shak.

Rate; price. [Obs.] "Business is bought at a dear hand, where there is small dispatch." Bacon.

Celerity of motion; speed; swiftness; dispatch; expedition; -- applied only to voluntary beings, as men and other animals. The king's business required haste. 1 Sam. xxi. 8.

Originally, a vessel employed by government to convey dispatches or mails; hence, a vessel employed in conveying dispatches, mails, passengers, and goods, and having fixed days of sailing; a mail boat. Packet boat, ship, or vessel. See Packet, n., 2. -- Packet day, the day for mailing letters to go by packet; or the s…

part of a larger body of company; a detachment; especially (Mil.), a small body of troops dispatched on special service.

ts in an organ, by causing compressed air from the wind chest to move them. -- Pneumatic dispatch, a system of tubes, leading to various points, through which letters, packages, etc., are sent, by the flow and pressure of air. -- Pneumatic elevator, a hoisting machine worked by compressed air. -- Pneumatic pile, a t…

in which a post office is established by law. -- To ride post, to ride, as a carrier of dispatches, from place to place; hence, to ride rapidly, with as little delay as possible. -- To travel post, to travel, as a post does, by relays of horses, or by keeping one carriage to which fresh horses are attached at each s…

The original copy of any writing, as of a deed, treaty, dispatch, or other instrument. Burrill.

Formerly, an officer of state charged with the duty of procuring and dispatching diplomas and decrees.

To get over; to dispose of; to dispatch; to finish. [R.] "Willingness rids way." Shak. Mirth will make us rid ground faster than if thieves were at our tails. J. Webster. To be rid of, to be free or delivered from. -- To get rid of, to get deliverance from; to free one's self from.

A person employed to write orders, letters, dispatches, public or private papers, records, and the like; an official scribe, amanuensis, or writer; one who attends to correspondence, and transacts other business, for an association, a public body, or an individual. That which is most of all profitable is acquaintance w…

To cause to go in any manner; to dispatch; to commission or direct to go; as, to send a messenger. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. Jer. xxiii. 21. I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. John viii. 42. Servants, sent on messages, stay out somewhat longer than the mes…

The act or state of moving swiftly; swiftness; velocity; rapidly; rate of motion; dispatch; as, the speed a horse or a vessel. Speed, to describe whose swiftness number fails. Milton.

hren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. James i. 19. Swift of dispatch and easy of access. Dryden. And bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 Pet. ii. 1.

A message sent by telegraph; a telegraphic dispatch.

to another; to pass on or down as by inheritance; as, to transmit a memorial; to transmit dispatches; to transmit money, or bills of exchange, from one country to another. The ancientest fathers must be next removed, as Clement of Alexandria, and that Eusebian book of evangelic preparation, transmitting our ears throug…

Not performed; not dispatched. [Obs.] Garth.