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Inability to express one's self; stiffness. [Obs.] A reverend disputant of the same costiveness in public elocution with myself. Wakefield.

To bend the body, as in reverence, pain, labor, etc.; to stoop; to crouch. [Obs.] An aged squire That seemed to couch under his shield three-square. Spenser.

An act of civility, respect, or reverence, made by women, consisting of a slight depression or dropping of the body, with bending of the kness. [Written also curtsy.] The lady drops a courtesy in token of obedience, and the ceremony proceeds as usual. Golgsmith.

To destroy; to make null. [Obs.] [Profane scoffing] doth . . . deface the reverence of religion. Bacon. For all his power was utterly defaste [defaced]. Spenser.

To praise or revere as a deity; to treat as an object of supreme regard; as, to deify money. He did again to extol and deify the pope. Bacon.

religious feelings and duties; absorbed in religious exercises; given to devotion; pious; reverent; religious. A devout man, and one that feared God. Acts x. 2. We must be constant and devout in the worship of God. Rogers.

In a devout and reverent manner; with devout emotions; piously. Cast her fair eyes to heaven and prayed devoutly. Shak.

Quality suited to inspire respect or reverence; loftiness and grace; impressiveness; stateliness; -- said of A letter written with singular energy and dignity of thought Macaulay.

rested and earnest endeavor. And each of them doth all his diligence To do unto the festé reverence. Chaucer.

; to indispose; to make unwilling; to alienate. Careful . . . to disincline them from any reverence or affection to the Queen. Clarendon. To social scenes by nature disinclined. Cowper.

Want of respect or reverence; disesteem; incivility; discourtesy. Impatience of bearing the least affront or disrespect. Pope.

like that of Hudibras. Addison. The ill-spelt lines of doggerel in which he expressed his reverence for the brave sufferers. Macaulay.

Reverential or respectful fear; awe. The fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth. Gen. ix. 2. His scepter shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. Shak.

Inspiring awe or reverence; awful. [Obs.] "God's dreadful law." Shak.

Respect; reverence; regard; act of respect; homage. "My duty to you." Shak.

To set a high value on; to prize; to regard with reverence, respect, or friendship. Will he esteem thy riches Job xxxvi. 19. You talk kindlier: we esteem you for it. Tennyson.

To go too far; to pass the proper bounds or measure. "In our reverence to whom, we can not possibly exceed." Jer. Taylor. Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed. Deut. xxv. 3.

se, the member of a legislative body who has had the longest continuous service. -- Most Reverend Father in God, a title given to archbishops and metropolitans, as to the archbishops of Canterbury and York. -- Natural father, the father of an illegitimate child. -- Putative father, one who is presumed to be the fath…

Apprehension of incurring, or solicitude to avoid, God's wrath; the trembling and awful reverence felt toward the Supreme Belng.

rder; to arrange, or lay away, esp. as papers in a methodical manner for preservation and reverence; to place on file; to insert in its proper place in an arranged body of papers. I would have my several courses and my dishes well filed. Beau. & Fl.