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To be like a bud in respect to youth and freshness, or growth and promise; as, a budding virgin. Shak.

in, to purchase stock in any fund or partnership. -- To buy on credit, to purchase, on a promise, in fact or in law, to make payment at a future day. -- To buy the refusal (of anything), to give a consideration for the right of purchasing, at a fixed price, at a future time.

The state of a communty which permits promiseuous sexual intercourse among its members, as in certain societies practicing communism.

c places as a guide and protector; to matronize. Fortunately Lady Bell Finley, whom I had promised to chaperon, sent to excuse herself. Hannah More.

Quite certain. [Colloq.] I throught myself cocksure of the horse which he readily promised me. Pope.

To pledge or bind; to compromise, expose, or endanger by some decisive act or preliminary step; -- often used reflexively; as, to commit one's self to a certain course. You might have satisfied every duty of political friendship, without commiting the honor of your sovereign. Junius. Any sudden assent to the proposal .…

To settle amicably; to adjust by agreement; to compromise; to discharge from obligation upon terms different from those which were stipulated; as, to compound a debt. I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife. Shak. To compound a felony, to accept of a consideration for forbearing to prosecute, such compounding bei…

attempts to bring persons or parties to terms of agreement, or to accomplish, ends by compromises. "Compounder in politics." Burke.

Relating to compromise. [R.] Chalmers.

To pledge by some act or declaration; to promise. State Trials (1529).

ondition or conditions; not absolute; made or granted on certain terms; as, a conditional promise. Every covenant of God with man . . . may justly be made (as in fact it is made) with this conditional punishment annexed and declared. Bp. Warburton.

The promises of God as revealed in the Scriptures, conditioned on certain terms on the part of man, as obedience, repentance, faith, etc. I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. Gen. xvi…

r received; expectation of future playment for property transferred, or of fulfillment or promises given; mercantile reputation entitling one to be trusted; -- applied to individuals, corporations, communities, or nations; as, to buy goods on credit. Credit is nothing but the expectation of money, within some limited t…

Increasing; growing. O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Tennyson.

To began to give promise; to begin to appear or to expand. "In dawning youth." Dryden. When life awakes, and dawns at every line. Pope. Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid. Heber,

y, or from fear of death. He that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. Ezek. xxxiii. 5. Promise was that I Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver. Milton.

aim; to disown; as, he was charged with embezzlement, but he disavows the crime. A solemn promise made and disavowed. Dryden.

to clear; as, to disengage one from a party, from broils and controversies, from an oath, promise, or occupation; to disengage the affections a favorite pursuit, the mind from study. To disengage him and the kingdom, great sums were to be borrowed. Milton. Caloric and light must be disengaged during the process. Transl…

a system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and administered; scheme; economy; as, the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations. Neither are God's methods or intentions different in his dispensations to each private man. Rogers.

overreach. [Colloq.] He was not be done, at his time of life, by frivolous offers of a compromise that might have secured him seventy-five per cent. De Quincey.