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two or more persons, upon a sufficient consideration or cause, to do, or to abstain from doing, some act; an agreement in which a party undertakes to do, or not to do, a particular thing; a formal bargain; a compact; an interchange of legal rights. Wharton.

merica, a weevil (Sphenophorus zeæ) which attacks the stalk of maize near the root, often doing great damage. See Grain weevil, under Weevil.

me timidity; pusillanimity; base fear of danger or hurt; lack of spirit. The cowardice of doing wrong. Milton. Moderation was despised as cowardice. Macualay.

Disposition to willful wrongdoing; malignity; perversity; cantankerousness; obstinacy. [Slang or Colloq., U. S.]

e act; way of acting common to many; ordinary manner; habitual practice; usage; method of doing or living. And teach customs which are not lawful. Acts xvi. 21. Moved beyong his custom, Gama said. Tennyson. A custom More honored in the breach than the observance. Shak.

Doing injury; trespassing, as cattle. Blackstone.

play with; to put off or delay by trifles; to wheedle. [Obs.] Captains do so dandle their doings, and dally in the service, as it they would not have the enemy subdued. Spenser.

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

(Physics), the transformation of energy into some form in which it is less available for doing work.

d hence, in an exaggerated sense, effeminacy; as, great delicacy of behavior; delicacy in doing a kindness; delicacy of character that unfits for earnest action. You know your mother's delicacy in this point. Cowper.

A verb formed from another verb by a change of termination, and expressing the desire of doing that which is indicated by the primitive verb.

A dress or exterior put on for purposes of concealment or of deception; as, persons doing unlawful acts in disguise are subject to heavy penalties. There is no passion steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises, than pride. Addison.

gher sensibilities of our nature; as, an act of cruelty may excite disgust. The manner of doing is more consequence than the thing done, and upon that depends the satisfaction or disgust wherewith it is received. Locke. In a vulgar hack writer such oddities would have excited only disgust. Macaulay.…

Neglecting or refusing to obey; omitting to do what is commanded, or doing what is prohibited; refractory; not observant of duty or rules prescribed by authority; -- applied to persons and acts. This disobedient spirit in the colonies. Burke. Disobedient unto the word of the Lord. 1 Kings xiii. 26.

elaxation of a law in a particular case; permission to do something forbidden, or to omit doing something enjoined; specifically, in the Roman Catholic Church, exemption from some ecclesiastical law or obligation to God which a man has incurred of his own free will (oaths, vows, etc.). A dispensation was obtained to en…

ct; to achieve. The neglecting it may do much danger. Shak. He waved indifferently' twixt doing them neither good not harm. Shak.

Doing nothing; inactive; idle; lazy; as, a do-nothing policy.

Doing. [Obs.] Rom. of R.

A minute quantity; a mite. Were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times as mush the forcible hindrance of evildoing. Milton.

as of cattle, sheep, birds. [Obs.] Cattle coming over the bridge (with their great drift doing much damage to the high ways). Fuller.