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the country or society; also, a written instrument embodying such organic law, and laying down fundamental rules and principles for the conduct of affairs. Our constitution had begun to exist in times when statesmen were not much accustomed to frame exact definitions. Macaulay.

wful indulgence; sometimes, moderation in sexual indulgence. If they [the unmarried and widows] have not continency, let them marry. 1 Cor. vii. 9 (Rev. Ver. ). Chastity is either abstinence or continence: abstinence is that of virgins or widows; continence, that of married persons. Jer. Taylor.

Broken down with grief and penitence; deeply sorrowful for sin because it is displeasing to God; humbly and thoroughly penitent. A contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Ps. li. 17. Be penitent, and for thy fault contrite. Milton.

om; usage; conventionality. There are thousands now Such women, but convention beats them down. Tennyson.

p or association; close acquaintance. "Conversation with the best company." Dryden. I set down, out of long experience in business and much conversation in books, what I thought pertinent to this business. Bacon.

performed on horseback, -- the only sure mode of conveyamce. Prescott. Following th river downward, there is conveyance into the countries named in the text. Sir W. Raleigh.

A drag or brake applied to the wheels of a carriage, to check their velocity in going down a hill. Knight.

. Those two massy pillars, With horrible convulsion, to and fro He tugged, he shook, till down they came. Milton. Times of violence and convulsion. Ames.

To form a cope or arch; to bend or arch; to bow. [Obs.] Some bending down and coping to ward the earth. Holland.

and seeds, after reaping and before thrashing. In one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail had thrashed the corn. Milton.

onsisting of a long blade, attached to a handle at nearly a right angle, used for cutting down the stalks of Indian corn.

finishes the part to which it is affixed; as, the cornice of an order, pedestal, door, window, or house. Gwilt. Cornice ring, the ring on a cannon next behind the muzzle ring.

A coronet or little crown of a seed; the downy tuft on seeds. See Pappus. Martyn.

Formed into a body by legal enactment; united in an association, and endowed by law with the rights and liabilities of an individual; incorporated; as, a corporate town.

body politic or corporate, formed and authorized by law to act as a single person, and endowed by law with the capacity of succession; a society having the capacity of transacting business as an individual.

The land with which a prebend or other ecclesiastical office is endowed. [Obs.] The prebendaries over and above their reserved rents have a corps. Bacon. Army corps, or (French) Corps d'armée (k, a body containing two or more divisions of a large army, organized as a complete army in itself. -- Corps de logis (ke l Et…

Conservation. -- Correlation of forces, the relation between the forces which matter, endowed with various forms of energy, may exert.

Submissive to correction; docile. "Bending down his corrigible neck." Shak.

A corpse; the dead body of a human being. [Archaic or Poetic] Set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul, I'll make a corse of him that disobeys. Shak.

A soft, downy substance, resembling fine wool, consisting of the unicellular twisted hairs which grow on the seeds of the cotton plant. Long-staple cotton has a fiber sometimes almost two inches long; short-staple, from two thirds of an inch to an inch and a half.