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To diminish; to become less; to shrink; to waste or consume away; to become degenerate; to fall away. Weary sennights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak and pine. Shak. Religious societies, though begun with excellent intentions, are said to have dwindled into factious clubs. Swift.

of its earlier manhood. Longfellow. The earliest poem he composed was in his seventeenth summer. J. C. Shairp. Early English (Philol.) See the Note under English. -- Early English architecture, the first of the pointed or Gothic styles used in England, succeeding the Norman style in the 12th and 13th centuries.…

A fungus of the genus Geoglossum.

The esculent tubers of the umbelliferous plants Bunium flexuosum and Carum Bulbocastanum.

To corrode, as metal, by rust; to consume the flesh, as a cancer; to waste or wear away; to destroy gradually; to cause to disappear. To eat humble pie. See under Humble. -- To eat of (partitive use). "Eat of the bread that can not waste." Keble. -- To eat one's words, to retract what one has said. (See the Citation…

The act of tasking food; the act of consuming or corroding.

t of the internal affairs of a state or of any establishment kept up by production and consumption; esp., such management as directly concerns wealth; as, political economy.

he whole church; as, an ecumenical council. [Written also .] Ecumenical Bishop, a title assumed by the popes. -- Ecumenical council. See under Council.

The purport; the sum and substance. "The effect of his intent." Chaucer.

r boldness in confronting or in transgressing the bounds of duty or decorum; insulting presumptuousness; shameless boldness; barefaced assurance. Corruption lost nothing of its effrontery. Bancroft.

Africa. Egyptian bean. (Bot.) (a) The beanlike fruit of an aquatic plant (Nelumbium speciosum), somewhat resembling the water lily. (b) See under Bean,

The sum of eight times ten; eighty units or objects.

astic rod fixed horizontally at one end and loaded at the other. (b) (Mech.) The figure assumed by the longitudinal axis of an originally straight bar under any system of bending forces. Rankine. -- Elastic fluids, those which have the property of expanding in all directions on the removal of external pressure, as the…

The sum of ten and one; eleven units or objects.

Notched at the summit.

To give a brown color to; to imbrown. Summer suns embrown the laboring swain. Fenton.

That which engages or occupies; that which consumes time or attention; office or post of business; service; as, agricultural employments; mechanical employments; public employments; in the employment of government. Cares are employments, and without employ The soul is on a rack. Young.

The circle of arts and sciences; a comprehensive summary of knowledge, or of a branch of knowledge; esp., a work in which the various branches of science or art are discussed separately, and usually in alphabetical order; a cyclopedia.

A plant which increases in size by internal growth and elongation at the summit, having the wood in the form of bundles or threads, irregularly distributed throughout the whole diameter, not forming annual layers, and with no distinct pith. The leaves of the endogens have, usually, parallel veins, their flowers are mos…

Increasing by internal growth and elongation at the summit, instead of externally, and having no distinction of pith, wood, and bark, as the rattan, the palm, the cornstalk.