Search the Dictionary

One living in a dale; -- a term applied particularly to the inhabitants of the valleys in the north of England, Norway, etc. Macaulay.

too long already; it is madness to dally any longer. Calamy. We have put off God, and dallied with his grace. Barrow.

A female parent; -- used of beasts, especially of quadrupeds; sometimes applied in contempt to a human mother. Our sire and dam, now confined to horses, are a relic of this age (13th century) . . . .Dame is used of a hen; we now make a great difference between dame and dam. T. L. K. Oliphant. The dam runs lowing up end…

A mother; -- applied to human beings and quadrupeds. [Obs.] Chaucer.

ark blue, edible berry with a white bloom, and its shrub (Gaylussacia frondosa) closely allied to the common huckleberry. The bush is also called blue tangle, and is found from New England to Kentucky, and southward.

The female offspring of the human species; a female child of any age; -- applied also to the lower animals.

One who works by the day; -- usually applied to a farm laborer, or to a workman who does not work at any particular trade. Goldsmith.

Flat; without gloss; -- said of painting which has been applied purposely to have this effect.

An arrangement to attain a desired result by a combination of interested parties; -- applied to stock speculations and political bargains. [Slang]

A small beetle (Anobium tessellatum and other allied species). By forcibly striking its head against woodwork it makes a ticking sound, which is a call of the sexes to each other, but has been imagined by superstitious people to presage death.

By distinct assertion; not impliedly; in the form of a declaration. The priest shall expiate it, that is, declaratively. Bates.

A name given by Haüy to the successive diminution of the layers of molecules, applied to the faces of the primitive form, by which he supposed the secondary forms to be produced.

Large; chief; -- applied to an extraordinary billow, supposed by some to be every tenth in order. [R.] Also used substantively. "Such decuman billows." Gauden. "The baffled decuman." Lowell.

Allied to, or containing, the radical decyl.

To inscribe or address, as to a patron. He complied ten elegant books, and dedicated them to the Lord Burghley. Peacham.

ction; deficiency; -- opposed to superfluity. Errors have been corrected, and defects supplied. Davies.

Wanting in something; incomplete; lacking a part; deficient; imperfect; faulty; -- applied either to natural or moral qualities; as, a defective limb; defective timber; a defective copy or account; a defective character; defective rules.

Direct; proving directly; -- applied to reasoning, and opposed to elenchtic or refutative.

considering the probable consequences of a step; circumspect; slow in determining; -- applied to persons; as, a deliberate judge or counselor. "These deliberate fools." Shak.

bounded by twelve quadrilateral faces. It is a hemihedral form of the isometric system, allied to the tetrahedron.