Search the Dictionary

Anything done; a deed; an action good or bad; hence, in the plural, conduct; behavior. See Do. To render an account of his doings. Barrow.

y the founder or patron, without either presentation or institution by the ordinary, or induction by his orders. See the Note under Benefice, n.,

An allowance or deduction made from the gross veight of goods. Simmonds.

A lose of advantage, or deduction from profit, value, success, etc.; a discouragement or hindrance; objectionable feature. The avaridrawback from the wisdom ascribed to him. Hallam.

The tendency of an act, argument, course of conduct, or the like; object aimed at or intended; intention; hence, also, import or meaning of a sentence or discourse; aim. He has made the drift of the whole poem a compliment on his country in general. Addison. Now thou knowest my drift. Sir W. Scott.

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

ames of the two earliest constructors of it. -- Dry pipe (Steam Engine), a pipe which conducts dry steam from a boiler. -- Dry plate (Photog.), a glass plate having a dry coating sensitive to light, upon which photographic negatives or pictures can be made, without moistening. -- Dry-plate process, the process of ph…

lly in a manna from Madagascar, and in certain plants, and produced artificially by the reduction of galactose and lactose or milk sugar.

A colorless, crystalline, aromatic hydrocarbon, C6H2(CH3)4, off artificial production, with an odor like camphor.

Of or pertaining to dynamics; belonging to energy or power; characterized by energy or production of force. Science, as well as history, has its past to show, -- a past indeed, much larger; but its immensity is dynamic, not divine. J. Martineau. The vowel is produced by phonetic, not by dynamic, causes. J. Peile.…

Unfavorable; not commendatory; -- opposed to eulogistic. There is no course of conduct for which dyslogistic or eulogistic epithets may be found. J. F. Stephen. The paternity of dyslogistic -- no bantling, but now almost a centenarian -- is adjudged to that genius of common sense, Jeremy Bentham. Fitzed. Hall.…

Brittle; inflexible; not ductile. [Obs.] Gold will be sometimes so eager, as artists call it, that it will as little endure the hammer as glass itself. Locke.

here or way; departing from the usual course; irregular; anomalous; odd; as, eccentric conduct. "This brave and eccentric young man." Macaulay. He shines eccentric, like a comet's blaze. Savage. Eccentric anomaly. (Astron.) See Anomaly. -- Eccentric chuck (Mach.), a lathe chuck so constructed that the work held by it…

The state of being eccentric; deviation from the customary line of conduct; oddity.

To discolor by the production of an ecchymosis, or effusion of blood, beneath the skin; -- chiefly used in the passive form; as, the parts were much ecchymosed.

t and management of the internal affairs of a state or of any establishment kept up by production and consumption; esp., such management as directly concerns wealth; as, political economy.

An efferent duct or stream.

ence, worn out with age; exhausted of energy; incapable of efficient action; no longer productive; barren; sterile. Effete results from virile efforts. Mrs. Browning If they find the old governments effete, worn out, . . . they may seek new ones. Burke.

Possessing the quality of being effective; productive of, or powerful to produce, the effect intended; as, an efficacious law.

Power to produce effects; operation or energy of an agent or force; production of the effect intended; as, the efficacy of medicine in counteracting disease; the efficacy of prayer. "Of noxious efficacy." Milton.