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s, or new arrangement of parts; to formulate by thought; to contrive; to excogitate; to invent; to plan; to scheme; as, to devise an engine, a new mode of writing, a plan of defense, or an argument. To devise curious works. Ex. CCTV. 32. Devising schemes to realize his ambitious views. Bancroft.

oward God appropriately expressed by acts of worship; devoutness. Genius animated by a fervent spirit of devotion. Macaulay.

el for holding liquid air, etc., having the space between the walls exhausted so as to prevent conduction of heat, and sometimes having the glass silvered to prevent absorption of radiant heat; -- called also, according to the particular shape, Dewar bulb, Dewar tube, etc.

Skillful in contrivance; quick at inventing expedients; expert; as, a dexterous manager. Dexterous the craving, fawning crowd to quit. Pope.

A sort of electroscope, invented by Rousseau, in which the dry pile is employed to measure the amount of electricity transmitted by different bodies, or to determine their conducting power. Nichol.

One celebrated upon the completion of sixty, or, according to some, seventy-five, years from the beginning of the thing commemorated.

A register of daily events or transactions; a daily record; a journal; a blank book dated for the record of daily memoranda; as, a diary of the weather; a physician's diary.

rative assembly in Germany, Poland, and some other countries of Europe; a deliberative convention; a council; as, the Diet of Worms, held in 1521.

Having two bellies; biventral; -- applied to muscles which are fleshy at each end and have a tendon in the middle, and esp. to the muscle which pulls down the lower jaw.

An embankment to prevent inundations; a levee. Dikes that the hands of the farmers had raised . . . Shut out the turbulent tides. Longfellow.

uate; to weaken. Lest these colors should be diluted and weakened by the mixture of any adventitious light. Sir I. Newton.

To make smaller by a half step; to make (an interval) less than minor; as, a diminished seventh.

To sound, as a bell; to ring; to clang. The fretful tinkling of the convent bell evermore dinging among the mountain echoes. W. Irving.

An optical instrument, invented by Hipparchus, for taking altitudes, leveling, etc.

A mode of scenic representation, invented by Daguerre and Bouton, in which a painting is seen from a distance through a large opening. By a combination of transparent and opaque painting, and of transmitted and reflected light, and by contrivances such as screens and shutters, much diversity of scenic effect is produce…

andidates for public office by direct popular vote rather than through the action of a convention or body of elected nominating representatives or delegates. The term is applied both to the nomination of candidates without any nominating convention, and, loosely, to the nomination effected, as in the case of candidates…

Acting directly, as one part upon another, without the intervention of other working parts. Direct-acting steam engine, one in which motion is transmitted to the crank without the intervention of a beam or lever; -- also called direct-action steam engine. -- Direct-acting steam pump, one in which the steam piston rod…

ife is made to slide when it is wished to limit the extent of motion of the latter, or prevent its injuring the parts beneath.

to disabuse themselves or artifice, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. J. Adams.

Not angelical. [R.] "Disangelical nature." Coventry.