Search the Dictionary

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,

The substances which inclose the ore on every side.

be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth. Shak. Death's-head moth (Zoöl.), a very large European moth (Acherontia atropos), so called from a figure resembling a human skull on the back of the thorax; -- called also death's-head sphinx.

Consisting of ten years; happening every ten years; as, a decennial period; decennial games. Hallam.

To select by lot and punish with death every tenth man of; as, to decimate a regiment as a punishment for mutiny. Macaulay.

A selection of every tenth person by lot, as for punishment. Shak.

g), the transom into which the deck is framed. -- To clear the decks (Naut.), to remove every unnecessary incumbrance in preparation for battle; to prepare for action. -- To sweep the deck (Card Playing), to clear off all the stakes on the table by winning them.

The act or art of declaiming; rhetorical delivery; haranguing; loud speaking in public; especially, the public recitation of speeches as an exercise in schools and colleges; as, the practice declamation by students. The public listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation.…

s laid before Europe that noble Declaration, which ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and blazoned on the porch of every royal palace. Buckle.

lique motion; obliquity; withdrawal. The declination of atoms in their descent. Bentley. Every declination and violation of the rules. South.

Large; chief; -- applied to an extraordinary billow, supposed by some to be every tenth in order. [R.] Also used substantively. "Such decuman billows." Gauden. "The baffled decuman." Lowell.

t of the heavens at the time of taking to one's sick bed, by which the prognostics of recovery or death were made.

A question deep almost as the mystery of life. De Quincey. O Lord, . . . thy thought are very deep. Ps. xcii. 5.

To become deeper; as, the water deepens at every cast of the lead; the plot deepens. His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun. Byron.

Very; with a tendency to darkness of color. The deeply red juice of buckthorn berries. Boyle.

defect of memory or judgment. Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know, Make use of every friend -- any every foe. Pope. Among boys little tenderness is shown to personal defects. Macaulay.

scertain or exhibit clearly; as, the defining power of an optical instrument. Rings . . . very distinct and well defined. Sir I. Newton.

-- Law of definite proportions (Chem.), the essential law of chemical combination that every definite compound always contains the same elements in the same proportions by weight; and, if two or more elements form more than one compound with each other, the relative proportions of each are fixed. Compare Law of multi…

decline in good qualities; deterioration; meanness. Degeneracy of spirit in a state of slavery. Addison. To recover mankind out of their universal corruption and degeneracy. S. Clarke.

putation; debased; sunken; low; base. The Netherlands . . . were reduced practically to a very degraded condition. Motley.