Search the Dictionary

ing to promote a purpose; not tending to the end desired; inadvisable; unfit; improper; unsuitable to time and place; as, what is expedient at one time may be inexpedient at another. If it was not unlawful, yet it was highly inexpedient to use those ceremonies. Bp. Burnet.

or quality of being infelicitous; unhappiness; misery; wretchedness; misfortune; want of suitableness or appropriateness. I. Watts. Whatever is the ignorance and infelicity of the present state, we were made wise and happy. Glanvill.

Of or pertaining to or suitable for the lower regions, inhabited, according to the ancients, by the dead; pertaining to Pluto's realm of the dead, the Tartarus of the ancients. The Elysian fields, the infernal monarchy. Garth.

Not apt or fit; unfit; not convenient; inappropriate; unsuitable; as, inhabile matter. [Obs.]

Unsuitableness; unaptness; unfitness; inability. [Obs.] Barrow.

Not habitable; not suitable to be inhabited. [Obs.] The frozen ridges of the Alps Or other ground inhabitable. Shak.

Suitable for an introduction or beginning; introductory; prefatory; as, an initiatory step. Bp. Hall.

The act of pursuing; pursuit; harassment; persecution. [Obs.] Sir T. More.

A following after; close pursuit. [Obs.] Chapman.

To begin; to commence; to set on foot; as, to institute an inquiry; to institute a suit. And haply institute A course of learning and ingenious studies. Shak.

Suitable for exercising the intellect; formed by, and existing for, the intellect alone; perceived by the intellect; as, intellectual employments.

Having the mind closely directed to or bent on an object; sedulous; eager in pursuit of an object; -- formerly with to, but now with on; as, intent on business or pleasure. "Intent on mischief." Milton. Be intent and solicitous to take up the meaning of the speaker. I. Watts.

o litigate the right or title between themselves, and thereby to relieve himself from the suits which they might otherwise bring against him.

That may be interpolated; suitable to be interpolated. A most interpolable clause of one sentence. De Morgan.

In a suit to which one has not been made a party, to put forward a defense of one's interest in the subject matter. Abbott.

One who intervenes; especially (Law), a person who assumes a part in a suit between others.

by which a third person, to protect his own interest, interposes and becomes a party to a suit pending between other parties.

ion of the coefficients of one or more forms, which remains unaltered, when these undergo suitable linear transformations. J. J. Sylvester.

ted in a variety of ways, -- as that quality in plants by which they exhibit motion under suitable stimulation; esp., the property which living muscle processes, of responding either to a direct stimulus of its substance, or to the stimulating influence of its nerve fibers, the response being indicated by a change of f…

Lawful or suitable to be issued; as, a writ issuable on these grounds. Issuable plea (Law), a plea to the merits, on which the adverse party may take issue and proceed to trial.