Search the Dictionary

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.

by another person, party, or public body to act in his or its behalf; delegation; as, the general sent a deputation to the enemy to propose a truce. By deputation, or In deputation, by delegated authority; as substitute; through the medium of a deputy. [Obs.] Say to great Cæsar this: In deputation I kiss his conquering…

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.

To pass from the more general or important to the particular or less important matters to be considered.

Derivation, as from an ancestor; procedure by generation; lineage; birth; extraction. Dryden.

Same as Generatrix.

Anything desired; that of which the lack is felt; a want generally felt and acknowledge.

The invention and conduct of the subject; the disposition of every part, and the general order of the whole. Arts of design, those into which the designing of artistic forms and figures enters as a principal part, as architecture, painting, engraving, sculpture. -- School of design, one in which are taught the inventi…

iæ, a group of unicellular algæ in which the species have a greenish color, and the cells generally appear as if they consisted of two coalescing halves.

A member of a group of South American blood-sucking bats, of the genera Desmodus and Diphylla. See Vampire.

ty; fate; a resistless power or agency conceived of as determining the future, whether in general or of an individual. But who can turn the stream of destiny Spenser. Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny. Longfellow. The Destinies (Anc. Myth.), the three Parcæ, or Fates…

thout resources; deficiency; lack; extreme poverty; utter want; as, the inundation caused general destitution.

To grow worse; to be impaired in quality; to degenerate. Under such conditions, the mind rapidly deteriorates. Goldsmith.

ion of a differentia to a concept or notion, thus limiting its extent; -- the opposite of generalization.

ooids produced by budding or fission from the primary zooids, in animals having alternate generations. In the tapeworms, the joints are deuterozooids.

a regular series of compound in the series, and not to its composition, but which is now generally employed in the same sense as bi- or di-, although little used.

), a surface described by a moving right line, and such that consecutive positions of the generator intersect each other. Hence, the surface can be developed into a plane.

An emblematic design, generally consisting of one or more figures with a motto, used apart from heraldic bearings to denote the historical situation, the ambition, or the desire of the person adopting it. See Cognizance.

To transfer from one person to another; to deliver over; to hand down; -- generally with upon, sometimes with to or into. They devolved a considerable share of their power upon their favorite. Burke. They devolved their whole authority into the hands of the council of sixty. Addison.

A coasting vessel of Arabia, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean. It has generally but one mast and a lateen sail. [Also written dow.]