Search the Dictionary

s; any natural endowment, or any acquirement, which fits a person for a place, office, or employment, or which enables him to sustian any character with success; an enabling quality or circumstance; requisite capacity or possession. There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive.…

wledge, skill, or other accomplishment necessary for a purpose; to make capable, as of an employment or privilege; to supply with legal power or capacity. He had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession. Macaulay.

One employed to collect profits. [R.] "The pope's questuaries." Jer. Taylor.

To spend time in trifling employments, or to attend to useful subjects in an indifferent or superficial manner; to dawdle.

sists in the withdrawal of the mind from worldly interests and anxieties and its constant employment in the passive contemplation of God and his attributes.

sion (Med.), any of the salts of this alkaloid, as the acetate, chloride, sulphate, etc., employed as a febrifuge or antiperiodic. Called also quinia, quinina, etc. [Written also chinine.]

A contrivance employed by the ancient Peruvians, Mexicans, etc., as a substitute for writing and figures, consisting of a main cord, from which hung at certain distances smaller cords of various colors, each having a special meaning, as silver, gold, corn, soldiers. etc. Single, double, and triple knots were tied in th…

Of or pertaining to radiotelegraphy; employing, or used or employed in, radiotelegraphy.

language; satirical merriment. Let raillery be without malice or heat. B. Jonson. Studies employed on low objects; the very naming of them is sufficient to turn them into raillery. Addison.

or war; to excite. He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind. Ps. cvii. 25. Æneas . . . employs his pains, In parts remote, to raise the Tuscan swains. Dryden.

A herdsman; a peasant employed on a ranch or rancho.

To deprive feloniously of the tools used in one's employment (as by breaking or stealing them), for the purpose of annoying; as, to ratten a mechanic who works during a strike. [Trades-union Cant] J. McCarthy.

A substance capable of producing with another a reaction, especially when employed to detect the presence of other bodies; a test.

pect to one's integrity, capacity, pecuniary ability, and the like; as, I referred to his employer for the truth of his story.

ing or refusing; option; as, to give one the refusal of a farm; to have the refusal of an employment.

ly (tobacco, salt, etc.) used chiefly as a means of taxation. Such monopolies are largely employed in Austria, Italy, France, and Spain.

g; unyielding; unpitying; as, a prey to relentless despotism. For this the avenging power employs his darts,.. Thus will persist, relentless in his ire. Dryden. -- Re*lent"less*ly, adv. -- Re*lent"less*ness, n.

faith. James justly regarded these renegades as the most serviceable tools that he could employ. Macaulay.

ered by a person sent to examine, explore, or investigate; as, a messenger reports to his employer what he has seen or ascertained; the committee reported progress. There is no man that may reporten all. Chaucer.

An instrument employed for replacing a displaced organ or part.