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usually shorter and less methodical than a formal, finished treatise; as, an essay on the life and writings of Homer; an essay on fossils, or on commerce.

Settled condition or form of existence; state; condition or circumstances of life or of any person; situation. "When I came to man's estate." Shak. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Romans xii. 16.

wance to a person out of an estate or other thing for support; as of wood to a tenant for life, etc., of sustenance to a man confined for felony of his estate, or alimony to a woman divorced out of her husband's estate. Blackstone. Common of estovers. See under Common, n.

A destructive kind of waste, committed by a tenant for life, in lands, woods, or houses. Cowell.

quired by good breeding, or prescribed by authority, to be observed in social or official life; observance of the proprieties of rank and occasion; conventional decorum; ceremonial code of polite society. The pompous etiquette to the court of Louis the Fourteenth. Prescott.

The fundamental forms of organic life, that are composed of two equal and symmetrical halves. Syd. Soc. Lex.

Without an irregularity, flaw, or blemish; pure. "I know my life so even." Shak.

The latter portion, as of life; the declining period, as of strength or glory.

incidents; as, an eventful journey; an eventful period of history; an eventful period of life.

us; as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart, words, and the like. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, When death's approach is seen so terrible. Shak.

A representation of things beyond natural life, in expression, beauty, power, vigor.

Lifeless; dead. [R.] "Carcasses exanimate." Spenser.

Deprivation of life or of spirits. [R.] Bailey.

Lifeless; dead. [Obs.] Johnson.

ing being received in place of the thing as, to exchange a palace for cell. And death for life exchanged foolishly. Spenser. To shift his being Is to exchange one misery with another. Shak.

To void excrement. [R.] Life of A. Wood

Exemplariness. [R.] The exemplarity of Christ's life. Abp. Sharp.

To live; to have life or the functions of vitality; as, men can not exist water, nor fishes on land.

Any departure; the act of quitting the stage of action or of life; death; as, to make one's exit. Sighs for his exit, vulgarly called death. Cowper.

ving of the disease principally to the efforts of nature to effect a cure. Expectation of life, the mean or average duration of the life individuals after any specified age.