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o confuse; to benumb. While flashing beams do daze his feeble eyen. Spenser. Such souls, Whose sudden visitations daze the world. Sir H. Taylor. He comes out of the room in a dazed state, that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for interest. Dickens.

To overpower with light; to confuse the sight of by brilliance of light. Those heavenly shapes Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze Insufferably bright. Milton. An unreflected light did never yet Dazzle the vision feminine. Sir H. Taylor.

A woman chosen as a helper in church work, as among the Congregationalists.

Pay drawn for soldiers, or others, really dead, whose names are kept on the rolls. O you commanders, That, like me, have no dead-pays. Massinger.

A kind of latch whose bolt may be so locked by a detent that it can not be opened from the inside by the handle, or from the outside by the latch key. Knight.

. -- Dean of guild, a magistrate of Scotch burghs, formerly, and still, in some burghs, chosen by the Guildry, whose duty is to superintend the erection of new buildings and see that they conform to the law. -- Dean of a monastery, Monastic dean, a monastic superior over ten monks. -- Dean's stall. See Decanal stall…

To discard. [Obs.] You have cast those by, decarded them. J. Fletcher.

One of those who conspired for constitutional government against the Emperor Nicholas on his accession to the throne at the death of Alexander I., in December, 1825; -- called also Dekabrist.

That which is proper or becoming. The external decencies of worship. Atterbury. Those thousand decencies, that daily flow From all her words and actions. Milton.

Tending deceive; delusive. [R.] As if those organs had deceptious functions. Shak.

eclines; virtue declines; religion declines; business declines. That empire must decline Whose chief support and sinews are of coin. Waller. And presume to know . . . Who thrives, and who declines. Shak.

One who decorates, adorns, or embellishes; specifically, an artisan whose business is the decoration of houses, esp. their interior decoration.

fe in a group of persons in which the assumed law of mortality is such that the ratio of those dying in a year to those living through the year is constant, being independent of the age of the persons.

Extending downward; -- said of a leaf whose base extends downward and forms a wing along the stem. -- De*cur"rent*ly, adv.

i. 10, 11. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. . . . But in a larger sense we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. A. Lincoln.

Illustrious act; achievement; exploit. "Knightly deeds." Spenser. Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn. Dryden.

To be of opinion; to think; to estimate; to opine; to suppose. And deemest thou as those who pore, With aged eyes, short way before Emerson.

A plant (Liatris odoratissima) whose fleshy leaves give out a fragrance compared to vanilla. Wood.

To call a defendant or other party whose duty it is to be present in court, and make entry of his default, if he fails to appear; to enter a default against.

An undoing or annulling; destruction. [Obs.] Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. Shak.