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Bold; spirited; showy. The dashing and daring spirit is preferable to the listless. T. Campbell.

A woman chosen as a helper in church work, as among the Congregationalists.

Having a dull, faint heart; spiritless; listless. -- Dead"*heart`ed*ness, n. Bp. Hall.

Unwilling to hear or listen; determinedly inattentive; regardless; not to be persuaded as to facts, argument, or exhortation; -- with to; as, deaf to reason. O, that men's ears should be To counsel deaf, but not to flattery! Shak.

To engage in strife or combat; to fight. [Obs.] Chaucer. Well could he tourney and in lists debate. Spenser.

to while away; to take away as if by deception. These occupations oftentimes deceived The listless hour. Wordsworth.

an exercise in schools and colleges; as, the practice declamation by students. The public listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. Macaulay.

Concealment; seclusion. The mental organization of the novelist must be characterized, to speak craniologically, by an extraordinary development of the passion for delitescency. Sir W. Scott.

warning shall deliver his soul. Ezek. xxxiii. 5. Promise was that I Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver. Milton.

A system of calisthenics patterned on the theories of François Delsarte (1811 -- 71), a French teacher of dramatic and musical expression.

or, in other words, of publicly renouncing their allegiance to their sovereign, and of enlisting under the banners of his enemy. Prescott.

A believer in destiny; a fatalist. [R.]

The practice of a devotionalist. A. H. Clough.

language; tongue; form of speech. This book is writ in such a dialect As may the minds of listless men affect. Bunyan. The universal dialect of the world. South.

ity; an order; a command; an authoritative rule, principle, or maxim; a prescription; as, listen to the dictates of your conscience; the dictates of the gospel. I credit what the Grecian dictates say. Prior.

A unit employed by oculists in numbering glasses according to the metric system; a refractive power equal to that of a glass whose principal focal distance is one meter.

ne's notice; to look with scorn upon; to scorn, as base acts, character, etc. When the Philistine . . . saw Dawid, he disdained him; for he was but a youth. 1 Sam. xvii. 42. 'T is great, 't manly to disdain disguise. Young.

To erase from a roll or list. [Written also disenrol.] Donne.

n the sight of others; to stain the character of; to lessen the reputation of; as, the duelist dishonors himself to maintain his honor. Nothing . . . that may dishonor Our law, or stain my vow of Nazarite. Milton.

One who holds the doctrine of ditheism; a dualist. Cudworth.