Search the Dictionary

fness; want of pliancy or feeling. A certain induration of character had arisen from long habits of business. Coleridge.

Given to industry; characterized by diligence; constantly, regularly, or habitually occupied; busy; assiduous; not slothful or idle; -- commonly implying devotion to lawful and useful labor. Frugal and industrious men are commonly friendly to the established government. Sir W. Temple.

Habitual diligence in any employment or pursuit, either bodily or mental; steady attention to business; assiduity; -- opposed to sloth and idleness; as, industry pays debts, while idleness or despair will increase them. We are more industrious than our forefathers, because in the present times the funds destined for th…

An inhabitant. Spenser.

Intoxicated; drunk; habitually given to drink; stupefied. Thus spake Peter, as a man inebriate and made drunken with the sweetness of this vision, not knowing what he said. Udall.

Incapable of, or indisposed to, effective action; habitually slack or remiss; effecting little or nothing; as, inefficient workmen; an inefficient administrator.

Want of activity or exertion; habitual indisposition to action or motion; sluggishness; apathy; insensibility. Glanvill. Laziness and inertness of mind. Burke.

Of or pertaining to or suitable for the lower regions, inhabited, according to the ancients, by the dead; pertaining to Pluto's realm of the dead, the Tartarus of the ancients. The Elysian fields, the infernal monarchy. Garth.

gainst another for violation of some law or penal statute. Common informer (Law), one who habitually gives information of the violation of penal statutes, with a view to a prosecution therefor. Bouvier. Wharton.

nerate or produce within; to begete; to engener; to occasion; to cause. Mede. Those noble habits are ingenerated in the soul. Sir M. Hale.

of existing, of being inherent, in something; inherence. A. Baxter. Constant inhesion and habitual abode. South.

An inhabitant. [Obs.] Spenser.

A place of shelter; hence, dwelling; habitation; residence; abode. [Obs.] Chaucer. Therefore with me ye may take up your inn For this same night. Spenser.

tion, without of improvement in the method. The resemblance between what originally was a habit, and an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished. Darwin.

That which is instituted, established, or fixed, as a law, habit, or custom. Glover.

Anything forming a characteristic and persistent feature in social or national life or habits. We ordered a lunch (the most delightful of English institutions, next to dinner) to be ready against our return. Hawthorne.

The state or quality of being unaccustomed; absence of use or habit. Absurdities are great or small in proportion to custom or insuetude. Landor.

ing to the people of an island; narrow; circumscribed; illiberal; contracted; as, insular habits, opinions, or prejudices. The penury of insular conversation. Johnson.

Specifically: Habitual or excessive indulgence in alcoholic liquors.

Specifically, addicted to an excessive or habitual use of alcoholic liquors.