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Worthly of being chosen or preferred; select; superior; precious; valuable. My choicest hours of life are lost. Swift.

or collection of families, united under a chieftain, regarded as having the same common ancestor, and bearing the same surname; as, the clan of Macdonald. "I have marshaled my clan." Campbell.

e who trains a boat's crew for a race. [Colloq.] Wareham was studying for India with a Wancester coach. G. Eliot.

Descending from the same stock or ancestor, but not in the same line or branch or one from the other; -- opposed to lineal.

hts, resulting in an agreement. But basely yielded upon compromise That which his noble ancestors achieved with blows. Shak. All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. Burke. An abhorrence of concession and compromise is a never fai…

Of the same blood; related by birth; descended from the same parent or ancestor. Shak.

An open country abounding in sheepcotes, as in the Cotswold hills, in Gloucestershire, England. Cotswold sheep, a long-wooled breed of sheep, formerly common in the counties of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester, Eng.; -- so called from the Cotswold Hills. The breed is now chiefly amalgamated with others.…

The best or choicest part of a thing; the quintessence; as. the cream of a jest or story; the cream of a collection of books or pictures. Welcome, O flower and cream of knights errant. Shelton. Bavarian cream, a preparation of gelatin, cream, sugar, and eggs, whipped; -- to be eaten cold. -- Cold cream, an ointment ma…

g was a great debate . . . and in that murder there were slain . . . fourscore. R. of Gloucester. But question fierce and proud reply Gave signal soon of dire debate. Sir W. Scott.

That which is chosen as the flower or choicest part; careful culling or selection. [R.] The laws of Normandy are, in a great measure, the defloration of the English laws. Sir M. Hale.

To take away the prime beauty and grace of; to rob of the choicest ornament. He died innocent and before the sweetness of his soul was defloured and ravished from him. Jer. Taylor.

e 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.

One who descends, as offspring, however remotely; -- correlative to ancestor or ascendant. Our first parents and their descendants. Hale. The descendant of so many kings and emperors. Burke.

Descending; falling; proceeding from an ancestor or source. More than mortal grace Speaks thee descendent of ethereal race. Pope.

The quality of being descendible; capability of being transmitted from ancestors; as, the descendibility of an estate.

That may descend from an ancestor to an heir. "A descendant estate." Sir W. Jones.

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

entry, who beguiled the dinner hour by a promenade near the tomb of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in Old Saint Paul's.

prive of legal right or qualification; to render legally incapable. An attainder of the ancestor corrupts the blood, and disables his children to inherit. Blackstone.

Remoteness in succession or relation; as, the distance between a descendant and his ancestor.