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A complex derivative of cyanogen, regarded as an acid, and known chiefly in its salts; -- called also hydromellonic acid.

r convex flower cluster, of the centrifugal or determinate type, differing from a corymb chiefly in the order of the opening of the blossoms.

A king; a chief; the title of the emperor of Russia. [Written also tzar.]

Pertaining to, consisting chiefly or wholly of, dactyls; as, dactylic verses.

The high or principal table, at the end of a hall, at which the chief guests were seated; also, the chief seat at the high table. [Obs.]

harm to person, property, or reputation; an inflicted loss of value; detriment; hurt; mischief. He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet and drinketh damage. Prov. xxvi. 6. Great errors and absurdities many commit for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their f…

A city of Syria. Damascus blade, a sword or scimiter, made chiefly at Damascus, having a variegated appearance of watering, and proverbial for excellence. -- 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.…

Procuring or causing loss; mischievous; injurious.

to direct air currents and prevent accumulation of gas. -- Fire damp, a damp consisting chiefly of light carbureted hydrogen; -- so called from its tendence to explode when mixed with atmospheric air and brought into contact with flame.

To terrify; to daunt. [Obs.] For I have done those follies, those mad mischiefs, Would dare a woman. Beau. & Fl. To dare larks, to catch them by producing terror through to use of mirrors, scarlet cloth, a hawk, etc., so that they lie still till a net is thrown over them. Nares.

Reckless mischief; the action of a dare-devil.

fact or principle granted; that upon which an inference or an argument is based; -- used chiefly in the plural. Any writer, therefore, who . . . furnishes us with data sufficient to determine the time in which he wrote. Priestley.

sp., an ecclesiastical dignitary, subordinate to a bishop. Dean of cathedral church, the chief officer of a chapter; he is an ecclesiastical magistrate next in degree to bishop, and has immediate charge of the cathedral and its estates. -- Dean of peculiars, a dean holding a preferment which has some peculiarity relat…

Of disagreeable things and antipathies. In our dear peril. Shak. Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven Or ever I had seen that day. Shak.

s; virtue declines; religion declines; business declines. That empire must decline Whose chief support and sinews are of coin. Waller. And presume to know . . . Who thrives, and who declines. Shak.

medal, cross, or ribbon of an order of knighthood, bestowed for services in war, great achievements in literature, art, etc. Decoration Day, a day, May 30, appointed for decorating with flowers the graves of the Union soldiers and sailors, who fell in the Civil War in the United States; Memorial Day. [U.S.]…

Large; chief; -- applied to an extraordinary billow, supposed by some to be every tenth in order. [R.] Also used substantively. "Such decuman billows." Gauden. "The baffled decuman." Lowell.

A head or chief over ten; especially, an officer who commanded a division of ten soldiers.

Illustrious act; achievement; exploit. "Knightly deeds." Spenser. Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn. Dryden.

To cut off; to take away or deduct a part of; -- used chiefly of money, accounts, rents, income, etc. To show what may be practicably and safely defalcated from the [the estimates]. Burke.