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, or undue familiarity; irreverent; impious. Hence, specifically; Irreverent in language; taking the name of God in vain; given to swearing; blasphemous; as, a profane person, word, oath, or tongue. 1 Tim. i. 9.

Belonging to, or partaking of the nature of, a pronoun.

ursuit by efforts of body or mind; as, the prosecution of a scheme, plan, design, or undertaking; the prosecution of war. Keeping a sharp eye on her domestics . . . in prosecution of their various duties. Sir W. Scott.

aking gain, or increase; thriving; successful; as, a prosperous voyage; a prosperous undertaking; a prosperous man or nation.

o shape or smooth by trimming; to trim: as, to prune trees; to prune an essay. Thackeray. Taking into consideration how they [laws] are to be pruned and reformed. Bacon. Our delightful task To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers. Milton.

One of the soft gelatinous cones found in the compound eyes of certain insects, taking the place of the crystalline cones of others.

The state of having, or the property of taking, a crystalline form unlike that which belongs to the species.

s; to stop; to halt. To pull through, to come successfully to the end of a difficult undertaking, a dangerous sickness, or the like.

Consisting of pus, or matter; partaking of the nature of pus; attended with suppuration; as, purulent inflammation.

Proceeding from putrefaction, or partaking of the putrefactive process; having an offensive smell; stinking; rotten.

An old instrument used for taking altitudes; -- called also geometrical square, and line of shadows.

A division or distribution by four, or into four parts; also, a taking the fourth part of any quantity or number.

The act of making fourfold; a taking four times the simple sum or amount.

to supply with legal power or capacity. He had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession. Macaulay.

Containing, or resembling, quartz; partaking of the nature or qualities of quartz.

That form of delusion which leads to extravagant and absurd undertakings or sacrifices in obedience to a morbidly romantic ideal of duty or honor, as illustrated by the exploits of Don Quixote in knight-errantry.

Taking root on, or above, the ground; rooting from the stem, as the trumpet creeper and the ivy.

The process of taking root, or state of being rooted; as, the radication of habits.

a competent number. -- To take rank of, to have precedence over, or to have the right of taking a higher place than.pull rank, to insist on one's own prerogative or plan of action, by right of a higher rank than that of one suggesting a different plan

and quick elevation or depression and training of the gun, and fitting with a device for taking up the recoil.