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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



1,934 words match “WHAT”

DEPOSIT v.
To lay aside; to rid one's self of. [Obs.] If what is written prove useful to you, to the depositing that which i can not deem an error. Hammond.
DESIGHTMENT n.
The act of making unsightly; disfigurement. [R.] To substitute jury masts at whatever desightment or damage in risk. London Times.
DESTRUCTIVE a.
opositions as a consequence of the denial of the last; a species of reductio ad absurdum. Whately.
DETAINER n.
The keeping possession of what belongs to another; detention of what is another's, even though the original taking may have been lawful. Forcible detainer is indictable at common law.
DETECTER n.
One who, or that which, detects or brings to light; one who finds out what another attempts to conceal; a detector.
DETECTION n.
The act of detecting; the laying open what was concealed or hidden; discovery; as, the detection of a thief; the detection of fraud, forgery, or a plot. Such secrets of guilt are never from detection. D. Webster.
DETERIORATE v.
make worse; to make inferior in quality or value; to impair; as, to deteriorate the mind. Whately. The art of war . . . was greatly deteriorated. Southey.
DETEST v.
To hate intensely; to abhor; to abominate; to loathe; as, we detest what is contemptible or evil. Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell. Pope.
DETRACT v.
To take credit or reputation from; to defame. That calumnious critic . . . Detracting what laboriously we do. Drayton.
DEVIL n.
L. longicruris) of the Atlantic ocean, having a blackish, leathery expansion, shaped somewhat like an apron. -- Devil's coachhorse. (Zoöl.) (a) The black rove beetle (Ocypus olens). [Eng.] (b) A large, predacious, hemipterous insect (Prionotus cristatus); the wheel bug. [U.S.] -- Devil's darning-needle. (Zoöl.) See u…
DEVULGARIZE v.
To free from what is vulgar, common, or narrow. Shakespeare and Plutarch's "Lives" are very devulgarizing books. E. A. Abbott.
DEXTRIN n.
g, etc., and obtained from starch by the action of heat, acids, or diastase. It is of somewhat variable composition, containing several carbohydrates which change easily to their respective varieties of sugar. It is so named from its rotating the plane of polarization to the right; -- called also British gum, Alsace gu…
DIABASE n.
ene with magnetic iron; -- often limited to rocks pretertiary in age. It includes part of what was early called greenstone.
DIABOLO n.
under this name) consisting in whirling on a string, fastened to two sticks, a small somewhat spool- shaped object (called the diabolo) so as to balance it on a string, toss it in the air and catch it, etc.
DIALOGUE v.
To express as in dialogue. [R.] And dialogued for him what he would say. Shak.
DICKENS n.
The devil. [A vulgar euphemism.] I can not tell what the dickens his name is. Shak.
DICTATE v. 3 definitions
to impose; as, to dictate the terms of a treaty; a general dictates orders to his troops. Whatsoever is dictated to us by God must be believed. Watts.
DICTIONARY n.
con; a vocabulary; a wordbook. I applied myself to the perusal of our writers; and noting whatever might be of use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumulated in time the materials of a dictionary. Johnson.
DIET n.
Course of living or nourishment; what is eaten and drunk habitually; food; victuals; fare. "No inconvenient diet." Milton.
DIFFERENCE n. 2 definitions
tion; as, a difference of quality in paper; a difference in degrees of heat, or of light; what is the difference between the innocent and the guilty Differencies of administration, but the same Lord. 1 Cor. xii. 5.
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