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Previous fitness or adaptation to any change, impression, or purpose; susceptibility; -- applied to material things; as, the predisposition of the body to disease.

The act of preparing or fitting beforehand for a particular purpose, use, service, or condition; previous arrangement or adaptation; a making ready; as, the preparation of land for a crop of wheat; the preparation of troops for a campaign.

That which has the power of preparing, or previously fitting for a purpose; that which prepares. "A preparative unto sermons." Hooker.

To fit, adapt, or qualify for a particular purpose or condition; to make ready; to put into a state for use or application; as, to prepare ground for seed; to prepare a lesson. Our souls, not yet prepared for upper light. Dryden.

To protect game for purposes of sport.

r offer, as true or real (something untrue or unreal); to show hypocritically, or for the purpose of deceiving; to simulate; to feign; as, to pretend friendship. This let him know, Lest, willfully transgressing, he pretend Surprisal. Milton.

Intention; design. [Obs.] A very pretense and purpose of unkindness. Shak.

To undertake a thing falsely and deceitfully, with the purpose of defeating or destroying it.

To intercept; to hinder; to frustrate; to stop; to thwart. "This vile purpose to prevent." Shak. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. Milton.

Privacy; secrecy; confidence. Chaucer. I will unto you, in privity, discover . . . my purpose. Spenser.

sometimes used to drag a gun carriage or to lash it to the limber, and for various other purposes.

n actor or an orator, of the words to be spoken next; specifically, one employed for this purpose in a theater.

To set before one's self or others as a purpose formed; hence, to purpose; to intend. I propose to relate, in several volumes, the history of the people of New England. Palfrey. To propose to one's self, to intend; to design.

One who prosecutes or carries on any purpose, plan, or business.

To devote to base or unworthy purposes; to give up to low or indiscriminate use; as, to prostitute talents; to prostitute official powers. Milton.

The act of setting one's self to sale, or of devoting to infamous purposes what is in one's power; as, the prostitution of abilities; the prostitution of the press. "Mental prostitution." Byron.

One who prostitutes; one who submits himself, of or offers another, to vile purposes. Bp. Hurd.

with clay by tamping; to fill in or spread with mortar, as a floor or partition, for the purpose of deadening sound. See Pugging, 2.

court of justice on a convicted offender as a just retribution, and incidentally for the purposes of reformation and prevention.

Having or indicating purpose or design. "Purposive characters." Bastian. Purposive modification of structure in a bone. Owen. It is impossible that the frog should perform actions morepurposive than these. Huxley.