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To refuse to own or acknowledge as belonging to one's self; to disavow or deny, as connected with one's self personally; as, a parent can hardly disown his child; an author will sometimes disown his writings.

to spread; as, the Jews are dispersed among all nations. The lips of the wise disperse knowledge. Prov. xv. 7. Two lions, in the still, dark night, A herd of beeves disperse. Cowper.

One who dispossesses. Cowley.

Indistinct; faint; obscure, as from distance. Some distant knowledge. Shak. A distant glimpse. W. Irving.

A water fowl; the didapper. See Dabchick.

Professing, or relating to, divination. "A natural divinatory instinct." Cowley.

A teacher; one skilled in a profession, or branch of knowledge learned man. [Obs.] One of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Macciavel. Bacon.

school, or a sect; a principle or position, or the body of principles, in any branch of knowledge; any tenet or dogma; a principle of faith; as, the doctrine of atoms; the doctrine of chances. "The doctrine of gravitation." I. Watts. Articles of faith and doctrine. Hooker. The Monroe doctrine (Politics), a policy enunc…

Like a dog; having the bad qualities of a dog; churlish; growling; brutal. -- Dog"*gish*ly, adv. -- Dog"gish*ness, n.

cernment; decision. [Obs.] And there he learned of things and haps to come, To give foreknowledge true, and certain doom. Fairfax.

. It is tame and easily taken, and is popularly believed to imitate the movements of the fowler. In catching of dotterels we see how the foolish bird playeth the ape in gestures. Bacon.

A fluctuation of mind arising from defect of knowledge or evidence; uncertainty of judgment or mind; unsettled state of opinion concerning the reality of an event, or the truth of an assertion, etc.; hesitation. Doubt is the beginning and the end of our efforts to know. Sir W. Hamilton. Doubt, in order to be operative…

ish-topped hill; -- usually in the plural. Hills afford prospects, as they must needs acknowledge who have been on the downs of Sussex. Ray. She went by dale, and she went by down. Tennyson.

To draw slowly or heavily onward; to pull along the ground by main force; to haul; to trail; -- applied to drawing heavy or resisting bodies or those inapt for drawing, with labor, along the ground or other surface; as, to drag stone or timber; to drag a net in fishing. Dragged by the cords which through his feet were…

To extract the bowels of; to eviscerate; as, to draw a fowl; to hang, draw, and quarter a criminal. In private draw your poultry, clean your tripe. King.

. & i. Drawn butter, butter melter and prepared to be used as a sort of gravy. -- Drawn fowl, an eviscerated fowl. -- Drawn game or battle, one in which neither party wins; one equally contested. -- Drawn fox, one driven from cover. Shak. -- Drawn work, ornamental work made by drawing out threads from fine cloth, a…

As if in a dream; softly; slowly; languidly. Longfellow.

The stuffing of fowls, pigs, etc.; forcemeat.

To fall weakly and slowly. [Obs.] "The dribbling dart of love." Shak. (Meas. for Meas. , i. 3, 2). [Perhaps an error for dribbing.]

of water or air; as, the ship drifted astern; a raft drifted ashore; the balloon drifts slowly east. We drifted o'er the harbor bar. Coleridge.