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A lopping off; a diminution; abatement; deficit. Specifically: Reduction of a claim by deducting a counterclaim; set-off. Abbott.

To lop off; to bate. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

nution or reduction of strength, efficacy, or value; degeneration; deterioration. The development and degradation of the alphabetic forms can be traced. I. Taylor (The Alphabet).

Having the typical characters or organs in a partially developed condition, or lacking certain parts. Some families of plants are degraded dicotyledons. Dana.

of the novelist must be characterized, to speak craniologically, by an extraordinary development of the passion for delitescency. Sir W. Scott.

The division of Cetacea in which the teeth are developed, including the sperm whale, dolphins, etc.

The development and cutting of teeth; teething.

s point can not be called in question, depones to the confinement of Merlin in a tree. Dunlop.

Inclination downward; a descending way; inclined or sloping surface; declivity; slope; as, a steep descent.

A table, frame, or case, usually with sloping top, but often with flat top, for the use writers and readers. It often has a drawer or repository underneath.

To shorten by cutting; to cut off; to lop off.

The act of lopping or cutting off, as the head from the body.

Bending down; sloping. [Obs.]

A bending downward; a sloping; incurvation downward; declivity. [R.] Davies (Wit's Pilgr.)

A huge ray (Manta birostris or Cephaloptera vampyrus) of the Gulf of Mexico and Southern Atlantic coasts. Several other related species take the same name. See Cephaloptera.

An order of cephalopods which includes those with two gills, an apparatus for emitting an inky fluid, and either eight or ten cephalic arms bearing suckers or hooks, as the octopi and squids. See Cephalopoda.

An order of worms parasitic in cephalopods. They are remarkable for the extreme simplicity of their structure. The embryo exists in two forms.

To disappear gradually in another surface, as where moldings are lost in a sloped or curved face.

rk by a specific difference; to effect a difference in, as regards classification; to develop differential characteristics in; to specialize; to desynonymize. The word then was differentiated into the two forms then and than. Earle. Two or more of the forms assumed by the same original word become differentiated in sig…

The gradual formation or production of organs or parts by a process of evolution or development, as when the seed develops the root and the stem, the initial stem develops the leaf, branches, and flower buds; or in animal life, when the germ evolves the digestive and other organs and members, or when the animals as the…