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Declivity; descent; slope. On th' icy downhills of this slippery life. Du Bartas (Trans. ).

something burdensome; hence, to pass in pain or with difficulty. Have dragged a lingering life. Dryden. To drag an anchor (Naut.), to trail it along the bottom when the anchor will not hold the ship.

n, in prose or poetry, accommodated to action, and intended to exhibit a picture of human life, or to depict a series of grave or humorous actions of more than ordinary interest, tending toward some striking result. It is commonly designed to be spoken and represented by actors on the stage. A divine pastoral drama in…

his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. Bryant. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. Burke. Casting of draperies. See under Casting. The casting of draperies . . . is one of the most important of an artist's studies. Fairholt.

every or inaction; to spend in idle vagaries; as, to dream away an hour; to dream through life. " Why does Antony dream out his hours" Dryden.

ep in motion; to conduct; to prosecute. [Now used only colloquially.] Bacon. The trade of life can not be driven without partners. Collier.

t scarce allayed, still eyes the current stream. Milton. In the dust and drouth of London life. Tennyson.

To deprive of life by immersion in water or other liquid.

A wood nymph; a nymph whose life was bound up with that of her tree.

Heavy; gross; cloggy; insensible; spiritless; lifeless; inert. "The dull earth." Shak. As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so changes of study a dull brain. Longfellow.

In a dull manner; stupidly; slowly; sluggishly; without life or spirit. Supinely calm and dully innocent. G. Lyttelton.

Dull; stupid; sad; moping; melancholy. " A . . . dumpish and sour life." Lord Herbert. -- Dump"ish*ly, adv. -- Dump"ish*ness, n.

During; as, durante vita, during life; durante bene placito, during pleasure.

Hard; harsh; severe; rough; toilsome. [R.] The winter is severe, and life is dure and rude. W. H. Russell.

In the time of; as long as the action or existence of; as, during life; during the space of a year.

resently deposit your hundred pounds in gold, or else no going hence all the days of your life. . . . The Abbot down with his dust, and glad he escaped so, returned to Reading." Fuller. -- Dust brand (Bot.), a fungous plant (Ustilago Carbo); -- called also smut. -- Gold dust, fine particles of gold, such as are obtai…

The act of expiring; passage from life to death; loss of life.

One who uses dynamite; esp., one who uses it for the destruction of life and property.

h of physiology which treats of rudimentary organs, in view of their being useless to the life of the organism. To the doctrine of dysteleology, or the denial of final causes, a proof of the real existence of such a thing as instinct must necessarily be fatal. Word (Dynamic Sociology).

rst part of a period of time, or among the first of successive acts, events, etc. Seen in life's early morning sky. Keble. The forms of its earlier manhood. Longfellow. The earliest poem he composed was in his seventeenth summer. J. C. Shairp. Early English (Philol.) See the Note under English. -- Early English archit…