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Means of the removal of disease or evil; that which heals; a remedy; a restorative. Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure. Dryden. The proper cure of such prejudices. Bp. Hurd.

rader; a purchaser; a buyer. He has got at last the character of a good customer; by this means he gets credit for something considerable, and then never pays for it. Goldsmith.

aving an internal shell, large eyes, and ten arms furnished with denticulated suckers, by means of which it secures its prey. The name is sometimes applied to dibranchiate cephalopods generally.

A combining form meaning circular, of a circle or wheel.

Divination by means of finger rings.

pass was dammed With dead men hurt behind, and cowards. Shak. To dam out, to keep out by means of a dam.

Divination by means of the laurel.

may seem dark at the first, will afterward be found more plain. Hooker. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word Shak.

To mend as a rent or hole, with interlacing stitches of yarn or thread by means of a needle; to sew together with yarn or thread. He spent every day ten hours in his closet, in darning his stockins. Swift. Darning last. See under Last. -- Darning needle. (a) A long, strong needle for mending holes or rents, especially…

One who meanly shrinks from danger; an arrant coward; a poltroon. You are all recreants and dashtards, and delight to live in slavery to the nobility. Shak.

Meanly timid; cowardly; base; as, a dastardly outrage.

Means of forming a decision. [Obs.] Beau. & Fl.

By tens; by means of decimals.

To find out, so as to be able to make known the meaning of; to make out or read, as words badly written or partly obliterated; to detect; to reveal; to unfold.

To cause to decrease or diminish. [Obs.] "You have declined his means." Beau. & Fl. He knoweth his error, but will not seek to decline it. Burton.

To cause to grow less; to diminish gradually; as, extravagance decreases one's means. That might decrease their present store. Prior.

To cry down; to censure as faulty, mean, or worthless; to clamor against; to blame clamorously; to discredit; to disparage. For small errors they whole plays decry. Dryden. Measures which are extolled by one half of the kingdom are naturally decried by the other. Addison.

Serving, or suitable, for defense; defensive. [Obs.] With men of courage and with means defendant. Shak.

To determine the precise signification of; to fix the meaning of; to describe accurately; to explain; to expound or interpret; as, to define a word, a phrase, or a scientific term. They define virtue to be life ordered according to nature. Robynson (More's Utopia).

ning the signification; a description of a thing by its properties; an explanation of the meaning of a word or term; as, the definition of "circle;" the definition of "wit;" an exact definition; a loose definition. Definition being nothing but making another understand by words what the term defined stands for. Locke.…