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Confusion of affairs; tumult; disorder; as, political distractions. Never was known a night of such distraction. Dryden.

To divide or separate, as into classes, orders, kinds, or species; to classify; to assort, as specimens, letters, etc.

To throw into disorder or confusion; to derange; to interrupt the settled state of; to excite from a state of rest. Preparing to disturb With all-cofounding war the realms above. Cowper. The bellow's noise disturbed his quiet rest. Spenser. The utmost which the discontented colonies could do, was to disturb authority.…

n of a state of peace or quiet; derangement of the regular course of things; disquiet; disorder; as, a disturbance of religious exercises; a disturbance of the galvanic current.

To separate into two parts, in order to ascertain the votes for and against a measure; as, to divide a legislative house upon a question.

An order of gastropods, including the true limpets, and having the teeth on the odontophore or lingual ribbon.

A Linnæan order of plants having twelve styles.

itle anciently given to the pope, and later to other church dignitaries and some monastic orders. See Don, and Dan.

Domesday Book, the ancient record of the survey of most of the lands of England, made by order of William the Conqueror, about 1086. It consists of two volumes, a large folio and a quarto, and gives the proprietors' tenures, arable land, woodland, etc. [Written also Doomsday Book.]

A high order of angels in the celestial hierarchy; -- a meaning given by the schoolmen. Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers. Milton.

ged at the end of February). After twenty-eight years the same letters return in the same order. The dominical letters go backwards one day every common year, and two every leap year; e. g., if the dominical letter of a common year be G, F will be the dominical letter for the next year. Called also Sunday letter. Cf. S…

c (Dominic de Guzman), or to the religions communities named from him. Dominican nuns, an order of nuns founded by St. Dominic, and chiefly employed in teaching. -- Dominican tertiaries (the third order of St. Dominic). See Tertiary.

A supposed high order of angels; dominations. See Domination,

r patron, without either presentation or institution by the ordinary, or induction by his orders. See the Note under Benefice, n.,

Blind, etc. -- In doors, or Within doors, within the house. -- Next door to, near to; bordering on. A riot unpunished is but next door to a tumult. L'Estrange. -- Out of doors, or Without doors, and, colloquially, Out doors, out of the house; in open air; abroad; away; lost. His imaginary title of fatherhood is out…

Belonging to, or resembling, the oldest and simplest of the three orders of architecture used by the Greeks, but ranked as second of the five orders adopted by the Romans. See Abacus, Capital, Order.

in order; a diesis. -- Double drum (Mus.), a large drum that is beaten at both ends. -- Double eagle, a gold coin of the United States having the value of 20 dollars. -- Double entry. See under Bookkeeping. -- Double floor (Arch.), a floor in which binding joists support flooring joists above and ceiling joists bel…

on. Doubt is the beginning and the end of our efforts to know. Sir W. Hamilton. Doubt, in order to be operative in requiring an acquittal, is not the want of perfect certainty (which can never exist in any question of fact) but a defect of proof preventing a reasonable assurance of quilt. Wharton.

An order from one person or party to another, directing the payment of money; a bill of exchange. I thought it most prudent to deter the drafts till advice was received of the progress of the loan. A. Hamilton.

a sail or canvas rigged on a stout frame, to be dragged by a vessel through the water in order to keep her head to the wind or to prevent drifting; -- called also drift sail, drag sheet, drag anchor, sea anchor, floating anchor, etc. -- Drag twist (Mining), a spiral hook at the end of a rod for cleaning drilled holes…