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To press down; to cause to sink; to let fall; to lower; as, to depress the muzzle of a gun; to depress the eyes. "With lips depressed." Tennyson.

The state of being depressed; a sinking.

The act of going downward; descent; falling or sinking; declension; degradation. Oblique descension (Astron.), the degree or arc of the equator which descends, with a celestial object, below the horizon of an oblique sphere. -- Right descension, the degree or arc of the equator which descends below the horizon of a ri…

To sink; to faint; to pine; to languish, with weakness, discouragement, love, etc. His heart died within, and he became as a stone. 1 Sam. xxv. 37. The young men acknowledged, in love letters, that they died for Rebecca. Tatler.

To form dimples; to sink into depressions or little inequalities. And smiling eddies dimpled on the main. Dryden.

To immerse one's self; to become plunged in a liquid; to sink. The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out. Coleridge.

A sinker attached to a fishing line; also, a line having several branches, each with such a sinker, used in deep-sea fishing. [Local, U. S.]

Loss of courage and firmness through fear; overwhelming and disabling terror; a sinking of the spirits; consternation. I . . . can not think of such a battle without dismay. Macaulay. Thou with a tiger spring dost leap upon thy prey, And tear his helpless breast, o'erwhelmed with wild dismay. Mrs. Barbauld.…

or bars (as for scales); also, for spacing off and cutting teeth in wheels. -- Dividing sinker. (Knitting Mach.). See under Sinker.

bed or pillow; that which affords ease and repose, like a bed of down When in the down I sink my head, Sleep, Death's twin brother, times my breath. Tennyson. Thou bosom softness, down of all my cares! Southern.

xhaust; to empty of wealth, resources, or the like; as, to drain a country of its specie. Sinking waters, the firm land to drain, Filled the capacious deep and formed the main. Roscommon.

flat stone so thrown along the surface of water as to skip from point to point before it sinks; also, the sport of so throwing stones; -- sometimes called ducks and drakes. Internal earthquakes, that, not content with one throe, run along spasmodically, like boys playing at what is called drakestone. De Quincey.…

A sink or drain; a privy. Shak. Matt. xv. 17. (c) pl. (Med.)

To require (so great a depth, as of water) for floating; -- said of a vessel; to sink so deep in (water); as, a ship draws ten feet of water.

To hang bending downward; to sink or hang down, as an animal, plant, etc., from physical inability or exhaustion, want of nourishment, or the like. "The purple flowers droop." "Above her drooped a lamp." Tennyson. I saw him ten days before he died, and observed he began very much to droop and languish. Swift.…

To move as an eddy, or as in an eddy; to move in a circle. Eddying round and round they sink. Wordsworth.

To bear with patience; to suffer without opposition or without sinking under the pressure or affliction; to bear up under; to put up with; to tolerate. I will no longer endure it. Shak. Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake. 2 Tim. ii. 10. How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people Est…

To sink away; to disappear gradually; to grow dim; to vanish. The stars shall fade away. Addison He makes a swanlike end, Fading in music. Shak.

To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink. When earnestly they seek Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail. Milton.

To sink into dejection; to lose courage or spirit; to become depressed or despondent. If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. Prov. xxiv. 10.