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A wearing off or away. Phonograms which by process long-continued detrition have reached a step of extreme simplicity. I. Taylor (The Alphabet).

l, the difference between the actual direction of a plumb line and the direction it would have if the earth were a perfect ellipsoid and homogeneous, -- caused by the attraction of a mountain, or irregularities in the earth's density.

Power of devising; invention; contrivance. I must have instruments of my own device. Landor.

ked person; hence, any great evil. "That devil Glendower." "The devil drunkenness." Shak. Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil John vi. 70.

a breed of hardy cattle originating in the country of Devon, England. Those of pure blood have a deep red color. The small, longhorned variety, called North Devons, is distinguished by the superiority of its working oxen.

Diagonal; diametrical; hence; diametrically opposed. [Obs.] Sin can have no tenure by law at all, but is rather an eternal outlaw, and in hostility with law past all atonement; both diagonal contraries, as much allowing one another as day and night together in one hemisphere. Milton.

A tendency of leaves or other organs of plants to have their dorsal surface faced towards the rays of light.

from the trick of Dido, who having bought so much land as a hide would cover, is said to have cut it into thin strips long enough to inclose a spot for a citadel.

To have a difference, cause of variance, or quarrel; to dispute; to contend. We 'll never differ with a crowded pit. Rowe.

To thrust; to poke. [Colloq.] You should have seen children . . . dig and push their mothers under the sides, saying thus to them: Look, mother, how great a lubber doth yet wear pearls. Robynson (More's Utopia). To dig down, to undermine and cause to fall by digging; as, to dig down a wall. -- To dig from, out of, out…

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.

, to digest the laws, etc. Joining them together and digesting them into order. Blair. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. Shak.

To have sexual intercourse with. [Obs.] Chaucer.

One of the terminal divisions of a limb appendage; a finger or toe. The ruminants have the "cloven foot," i. e., two hoofed digits on each foot. Owen.

solid. -- Space of four dimensions, as imaginary kind of extension, which is assumed to have length, breadth, thickness, and also a fourth imaginary dimension. Space of five or six, or more dimensions is also sometimes assumed in mathematics.

urnish with the chief meal; to feed; as, to dine a hundred men. A table massive enough to have dined Johnnie Armstrong and his merry men. Sir W. Scott.

A wild dog found in Australia, but supposed to have introduced at a very early period. It has a wolflike face, bushy tail, and a reddish brown color.

estructive to crops. -- Diogenes' tub, the tub which the philosopher Diogenes is said to have carried about with him as his house, in which he lived.

having only two functional wings and two balancers, as the house fly, mosquito, etc. They have a suctorial proboscis, often including two pairs of sharp organs (mandibles and maxillæ) with which they pierce the skin of animals. They undergo a complete metamorphosis, their larvæ (called maggots) being usually without fe…

Straightforwardly; honestly. I have dealt most directly in thy affair. Shak.