Search the Dictionary

To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence; -- with on or upon. And on the suitors let thy wrath descend. Pope.

A looking down; a despising. [R.] W. Montagu.

old gradually, as a flower from a bud; hence, to bring through a succession of states or stages, each of which is preparatory to the next; to form or expand by a process of growth; to cause to change gradually from an embryo, or a lower state, to a higher state or form of being; as, sunshine and rain develop the bud in…

the doctrine that animals and plants possess the power of passing by slow and successive stages from a lower to a higher state of organization, and that all the higher forms of life now in existence were thus developed by uniform laws from lower forms, and are not the result of special creative acts. See the Note under…

sign; a contrivance; an invention; a project; a scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem; an artifice. His device in against Babylon, to destroy it. Jer. li. 11. Their recent device of demanding benevolences. Hallam. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty. Job v. 12.

An intaglio. Mollett.

To make difficult. [Obs.] W. Montagu.

An argument which presents an antagonist with two or more alternatives, but is equally conclusive against him, whichever alternative he chooses.

A four-wheeled public stagecoach, used in France.

A kind of stagecoach. "The Derby dilly." J. H. Frere.

A very dangerous contagious disease in which the air passages, and especially the throat, become coated with a false membrane, produced by the solidification of an inflammatory exudation. Cf. Group.

Dexterity or skill in securing advantages; tact.

sprove. Yet can they never Toss into air the freedom of my birth, Or disavow my blood Plantagenet's. Ford.

Disadvantage; inconvenience. Bacon.

Not conductive; impeding; disadvantageous. [R.]

To be separated or severed; to part. Thyself shalt discontinue from thine heritage. Jer. xvii. 4.

Incongruous. W. Montagu.

To free from infectious or contagious matter; to destroy putrefaction; to purify; to make innocuous. When the infectious matter and the infectious matter and the odoriferous matter are one . . . then to deodorize is to disinfect. Ure.

To deprive of heritage; to dispossess. And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here. Milton.

What is contrary to interest or advantage; disadvantage. [Obs.] Glanvill.