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Pertaining to, or characteristic of, a demon or evil spirit; devilish; as, a demoniac being; demoniacal practices. Sarcastic, demoniacal laughter. Thackeray.

Of or pertaining to the people; popular; common. Demotic alphabet or character, a form of writing used in Egypt after six or seven centuries before Christ, for books, deeds, and other such writings; a simplified form of the hieratic character; -- called also epistolographic character, and enchorial character. See Encho…

To divest or deprive of national character or rights. Bonaparte's decree denationalizes, as he calls it, all ships that have touched at a British port. Cobbett. An expatriated, denationalized race. G. Eliot.

To give a name to; to characterize by an epithet; to entitle; to name; to designate. Passions commonly denominating selfish. Hume.

Characterized by or containing a denunciation; minatory; accusing; threatening; as, severe and denunciatory language.

ate of being depraved or degenerated; degeneracy; depravity. The depravation of his moral character destroyed his judgment. Sir G. C. Lewis.

The stae of being depraved or corrupted; a vitiated state of moral character; general badness of character; wickedness of mind or heart; absence of religious feeling and principle. Total depravity. See Original sin, and Calvinism.

Tending or designed to depredate; characterized by depredation; plundering; as, a depredatory incursion.

To divest of provincial quality or characteristics.

Expressing, serving for, or characterized by, derision. "Derisive taunts." Pope. -- De*ri"sive*ly, adv. -- De*ri"sive*ness, n.

To act beneath one-s rank, place, birth, or character; to degenerate. [R.] You are a fool granted; therefore your issues, being foolish, do not derogate. Shak. Would Charles X. derogate from his ancestors Would he be the degenerate scion of that royal line Hazlitt.

ry to their other. Macaulay. Derogatory clause in a testament (Law), a sentence of secret character inserted by the testator alone, of which he reserves the knowledge to himself, with a condition that no will he may make thereafter shall be valid, unless this clause is inserted word for word; -- a precaution to guard a…

To divest of a sacred character or office; to divert from a sacred purpose; to violate the sanctity of; to profane; to put to an unworthy use; -- the opposite of consecrate. The [Russian] clergy can not suffer corporal punishment without being previously desecrated. W. Tooke. The founders of monasteries imprecated evil…

Resembling, or having the characteristics of, a ligament; ligamentous.

Having the character of, or pertaining to, a despot; absolute in power; possessing and abusing unlimited power; evincing despotism; tyrannical; arbitrary. -- Des*pot"ic*al*ly, adv. -- Des*pot"ic*al*ness, n.

To deprive of synonymous character; to discriminate in use; -- applied to words which have been employed as synonyms. Coleridge. Trench.

The quality of mind reaches definite conclusions; decision of character; resoluteness. He only is a well-made man who has a good determination. Emerson.

heir course. I. Taylor. Determinative tables (Nat. Hist.), tables presenting the specific character of minerals, plants, etc., to assist in determining the species to which a specimen belongs.

To fix the form or character of; to shape; to prescribe imperatively; to regulate; to settle. The character of the soul is determined by the character of its God. J. Edwards. Something divinely beautiful . . . that at some time or other might influence or even determine her course of life. W. Black.…

; -- often with from. It has been the fashion to detract both from the moral and literary character of Cicero. V. Knox.