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Close to one's interests, affection, etc.; touching, or affecting intimately; intimate; dear; as, a near friend.

Relieving disorders of the kidneys; affecting the kidneys; as, a nephritic medicine. Nephritic stone (Min.), nephrite; jade. See Nephrite.

Having the quality of acting upon or affecting the nerves; quieting nervous excitement. -- n.

Uself in disorders of, or affecting, the nerves.

the head, so as to be appreciated as sounds by persons deaf from causes other than those affecting the nervous apparatus of hearing.

Affecting a whole people or a number of countries; everywhere epidemic. -- n.

Incomplete paralysis, affecting motion but not sensation.

Of, pertaining to, or affecting, a part only; not general or universal; not total or entire; as, a partial eclipse of the moon. "Partial dissolutions of the earth." T. Burnet.

Affecting or moving the tender emotions, esp. pity or grief; full of pathos; as, a pathetic song or story. "Pathetic action." Macaulay. No theory of the passions can teach a man to be pathetic. E. Porter. Pathetic muscle (Anat.), the superior oblique muscle of the eye. -- Pathetic nerve (Anat.), the fourth cranial, or…

The body of any quarry killed by the hawk. Pelt rot, a disease affecting the hair or wool of a beast.

Of or pertaining to a particular person; relating to, or affecting, an individual, or each of many individuals; peculiar or proper to private concerns; not public or general; as, personal comfort; personal desire. The words are conditional, -- If thou doest well, -- and so personal to Cain. Locke.

ould participate as far as possible (Burgess). Under this limitation the police power, as affecting persons, is the power of the state to protect the public against the abuse of individual liberty, that is, to restrain the individual in the exercise of his rights when such exercise becomes a danger to the community. Th…

In a manner affecting an individual; personally not officially; as, he is not privately benefited.

A cutaneous disease, characterized by imbricated silvery scales, affecting only the superficial layers of the skin.

Of or pertaining to the people; belonging to the people; relating to, or affecting, a nation, state, or community; -- opposed to private; as, the public treasury. To the public good Private respects must yield. Milton. He [Alexander Hamilton] touched the dead corpse of the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet. D.…

Of or pertaining to the lungs; affecting the lungs; pulmonic. Pulmonary artery. See the Note under Artery.

Relating to, or affecting the lungs; pulmonary. -- n.

Fitted or designed to retroact; operating by returned action; affecting what is past; retrospective. Beddoes. Retroactive law or statute (Law), one which operates to make criminal or punishable, or in any way expressly to affect, acts done prior to the passing of the law.

Having reference to what is past; affecting things past; retroactive; as, a retrospective law. Inflicting death by a retrospective enactment. Macaulay.

A general disease characterized by painful, often multiple, local inflammations, usually affecting the joints and muscles, but also extending sometimes to the deeper organs, as the heart. Inflammatory rheumatism (Med.), acute rheumatism attended with fever, and attacking usually the larger joints, which become swollen,…