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t competent; sufficient; hence, respectable; fairly good; reasonably comfortable or satisfying; as, a decent fortune; a decent person. A decent retreat in the mutability of human affairs. Burke. -- De"cent*ly, adv. -- De"cent*ness, n.

A pack or set of playing cards. The king was slyly fingered from the deck. Shak.

To make full statement of, as goods, etc., for the purpose of paying taxes, duties, etc. To declare off, to recede from an agreement, undertaking, contract, etc.; to renounce. -- To declare one's self, to avow one's opinion; to show openly what one thinks, or which side he espouses.

A man employed in decoying wild fowl.

a group of persons in which the assumed law of mortality is such that the ratio of those dying in a year to those living through the year is constant, being independent of the age of the persons.

A crying down; a clamorous censure; condemnation by censure.

Act of lying down; decumbence. [Obs.] Evelyn.

An attitude assumed in lying down; as, the dorsal decubitus.

The act or posture of lying down. The ancient manner of decumbency. Sir T. Browne.

Lying down; prostrate; recumbent. The decumbent portraiture of a woman. Ashmole.

An address to a patron or friend, prefixed to a book, testifying respect, and often recommending the work to his special protection and favor.

Low in situation; lying far below the general surface; as, a deep valley.

The act of delaying; postponement. [R.] My grief, joined with the instant business, Begs a deferment. Suckling.

The act of defying, putting in opposition, or provoking to combat; a challenge; a provocation; a summons to combat. A war without a just defiance made. Dryden. Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down. Tennyson.

for, as a charge, debt, expenses, costs, etc. For the discharge of his expenses, and defraying his cost, he allowed him . . . four times as much. Usher.

The act of defraying; payment; as, the defrayal of necessary costs.

The act of deifying; exaltation to divine honors; apotheosis; excessive praise.

A prefix signifying ten. See Deca-.

The act of representing, portraying, or describing, as by lines, diagrams, sketches, etc.; drawing an outline; as, the delineation of a scene or face; in drawing and engraving, representation by means of lines, as distinguished from representation by means of tints shades; accurate and minute representation, as disting…

The act of deliquescing or liquefying; process by which anything deliquesces; tendency to melt.