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To exercise reason; to employ the mind in judging and inferring; to reason. [Obs.] "Have sense or can discourse." Dryden.

To make a difference or distinction; to distinguish accurately; as, in judging of evidence, we should be careful to discriminate between probability and slight presumption.

Passing from one thing to another; ranging over a wide field; roving; digressive; desultory. "Discursive notices." De Quincey. The power he [Shakespeare] delights to show is not intense, but discursive. Hazlitt. A man rather tacit than discursive. Carlyle.

The act of discussing or exchanging reasons; examination by argument; debate; disputation; agitation. The liberty of discussion is the great safeguard of all other liberties. Macaulay. Discussion of a problem or an equation (Math.), the operation of assigning different reasonable values to the arbitrary quantities and…

The act of disengaging or setting free, or the state of being disengaged. It is easy to render this disengagement of caloric and light evident to the senses. Transl. of Lavoisier. A disengagement from earthly trammels. Sir W. Jones.

An unkindness; a disobliging act. He might dispense favors and disfavors. Clarendon.

orth what anything contains; to discharge; to make restitution. See where it flows, disgorging at seven mouths Into the sea. Milton.

The act of disgorging; a vomiting; that which is disgorged. Bp. Hall.

Bringing disgrace; causing shame; shameful; dishonorable; unbecoming; as, profaneness is disgraceful to a man. -- Dis*grace"ful*fy, adv. -- Dis*grace"ful*ness, n. The Senate have cast you forth disgracefully. B. Jonson.

r; -- used chiefly in the passive participle. With garments rent and hair disheveled, Wringing her hands and making piteous moan. Spenser.

Wanting in honor; not honorable; bringing or deserving dishonor; staining the character, and lessening the reputation; shameful; disgraceful; base.

Bringing dishonor on; tending to disgrace; lessening reputation. Holmes.

The act or process of dislodging, or the state of being dislodged.

The act of disobliging.

es of; to offend by an act of unkindness or incivility; to displease; to refrain from obliging; to be unaccommodating to. Those . . . who slight and disoblige their friends, shall infallibly come to know the value of them by having none when they shall most need them. South. My plan has given offense to some gentlemen,…

To refuse to own or acknowledge as belonging to one's self; to disavow or deny, as connected with one's self personally; as, a parent can hardly disown his child; an author will sometimes disown his writings.

To extend the front of (a column), bringing it into line. Farrow.

The act of disposing, arranging, ordering, regulating, or transferring; application; disposal; as, the disposition of a man's property by will. Who have received the law by the disposition of angels. Acts vii. 53. The disposition of the work, to put all things in a beautiful order and harmony, that the whole may be of…

Belonging to disposition or natural, tendency. [Obs.] "Dispositive holiness." Jer. Taylor.

The act of bursting or springing apart. [R.] Boyle.