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A choice or select body; the flower; as, the élite of society.

object, symbolizing and suggesting another object, or an idea, by natural aptness or by association; a figurative representation; a typical designation; a symbol; as, a balance is an emblem of justice; a scepter, the emblem of sovereignty or power; a circle, the emblem of eternity. "His cicatrice, an emblem of war, her…

the deep." Dryden. Those who have emerged from very low, some from the lowest, classes of society. Burke.

among men; a place or station above men in general, either in rank, office, or celebrity; social or moral loftiness; high rank; distinction; preferment. Milton. You 've too a woman's heart, which ever yet Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty. Shak.

law; a law; a decree; a statute; a prescribed requirement; as, a prohibitory enactment; a social enactment.

A ball and socket joint, or the kind of articulation represented by such a joint. See Articulation.

To gain for service; to bring in as associate or aid; to enlist; as, to engage friends to aid in a cause; to engage men for service.

To unite in; to join; to be admitted to; to become a member of; as, to enter an association, a college, an army.

Oneness; unity; -- applied to a condition of intimacy or close association. [Obs.] True Christian love may be separated from acquaintance, and acquaintance from entireness. Bp. Hall.

Surroundings; specif., collectively, one's attendants or associates.

or one of the similar segments in plants, such as the segments of a segmented leaf. Syd. Soc. Lex.

lanced, and hence equal; state of being equally balanced; -- said of moral, political, or social interests or forces. The means of preserving the equipoise and the tranquillity of the commonwealth. Burke. Our little lives are kept in equipoise By opposite attractions and desires. Longfellow.

A rare metallic element associated with several other rare elements in the mineral gadolinite from Ytterby in Sweden. Symbol Er. Atomic weight 165.9. Its salts are rose-colored and give characteristic spectra. Its sesquioxide is called erbia.

The state of a hermit; a living in seclusion from social life.

used by English writers to denote the common spirit pervading the members of a body or association of persons. It implies sympathy, enthusiasm, devotion, and jealous regard for the honor of the body as a whole.

grosser parts. The laws are at present, both in form and essence, the greatest curse that society labors under. Landor. Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence of this virtue [charity]. Addison. The essence of Addison's humor is irony. Courthope.

Social standing or rank; quality; dignity. God hath imprinted his authority in several parts, upon several estates of men. Jer. Taylor.

false; rules of practice in respect to a single class of human actions; as, political or social ethics; medical ethics. The completeness and consistency of its morality is the peculiar praise of the ethics which the Bible has taught. I. Taylor.

ctuates manners and customs; also, the characteristic tone or genius of an institution or social organization.

The forms required by good breeding, or prescribed by authority, to be observed in social or official life; observance of the proprieties of rank and occasion; conventional decorum; ceremonial code of polite society. The pompous etiquette to the court of Louis the Fourteenth. Prescott.