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The distance due east or west which a person or ship passes over in going along an oblique line.

Having a passive form with an active meaning, as certain latin and Greek verbs.

A railway station; a building for the accommodation and protection of railway passenges or freight. [U. S.]

To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, as by falling, flowing, walking, etc.; to plunge; to fall; to incline downward; -- the opposite of ascend. The rain descended, and the floods came. Matt. vii. 25. We will here descend to matters of later date. Fuller.…

ending node (Astron.), that point in a planet's orbit where it intersects the ecliptic in passing southward. -- Descending series (Math.), a series in which each term is numerically smaller than the preceding one; also, a series arranged according to descending powers of a quantity.

The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower.

to draw a plan of; to delineate; to trace or mark out; as, to describe a circle by the compasses; a torch waved about the head in such a way as to describe a circle.

A reckless, furious man; a person urged by furious passions, and regardless of consequence; a wild ruffian.

Jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order or rational connection; without logical sequence; disconnected; immethodical; aimless; as, desultory minds. Atterbury. He [Goldsmith] knew nothing accurately; his reading had been desultory. Macaulay.

strong tube of glass, usually graduated, closed at one end, and furnished with two wires passing through its sides at opposite points, and nearly meeting, for the purpose of exploding gaseous mixtures by an electric spark, as in gas analysis, etc.

The series of changes which animal and vegetable organisms undergo in their passage from the embryonic state to maturity, from a lower to a higher state of organization.

body falling freely, in consequence of the rotation of the earth. -- Deviation of the compass, the angle which the needle of a ship's compass makes with the magnetic meridian by reason of the magnetism of the iron parts of the ship. -- Deviation of the line of the vertical, the difference between the actual direction…

Transference from one person to another; a passing or devolving upon a successor. The devolution of the crown through a . . . channel known and conformable to old constitutional requisitions. De Quincey.

To roll onward or downward; to pass on. Every headlong stream Devolves its winding waters to the main. Akenside. Devolved his rounded periods. Tennyson.

Passing over the borders. [R.] Mitford.

That branch of natural philosophy which treats of the properties of sound as affected by passing through different mediums; -- called also diaphonics. See the Note under Acoustics.

A miner's compass. Dial bird (Zoöl.), an Indian bird (Copsychus saularius), allied to the European robin. The name is also given to other related species. -- Dial lock, a lock provided with one or more plates having numbers or letters upon them. These plates must be adjusted in a certain determined way before the lock…

To separate, prepare, or obtain, by dialysis or osmose; to pass through an animal membrane; to subject to dialysis. [Written also dialyse.]

Any right line passing through the center of a figure or body, as a circle, conic section, sphere, cube, etc., and terminated by the opposite boundaries; a straight line which bisects a system of parallel chords drawn in a curve.

The entire compass of tones. Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man. Dryden.