Search the Dictionary

Apt to censure or cavil; faultfinding; captious. [Obs.] Whitlock.

ate; lavish; licentious; -- used in a bad sense. The critics have been very free in their censures. Felton. A man may live a free life as to wine or women. Shelley.

To issue or send forth decrees or censures with the assumption of supreme authority; to thunder forth menaces.

Hurling denunciations, menaces, or censures. Fulminating oil, nitroglycerin. -- Fulminating powder (Chem.) any violently explosive powder, but especially one of the fulminates, as mercuric fulminate.

The act of thundering forth threats or censures, as with authority.

An expression or admission intended to secure against objections or censure. They have expressed themselves with as few guards and restrictions as I. Atterbury.

f my honor is meant anything distinct from conscience, 't is no more than a regard to the censure and esteem of the world. Rogers.

Not laudable; not praise-worthy; worthy of censure or disapprobation. Milton. -- Il*laud"a*bly, adv. [Obs.] Broome.

To disapprove; to find fault with; to reprove; to censure; as, to improve negligence. [Obs.] Chapman. When he rehearsed his preachings and his doing unto the high apostles, they could improve nothing. Tyndale.

Charge or attribution of evil; censure; reproach; insinuation. Let us be careful to guard ourselves against these groundless imputation of our enemies. Addison.

the lowly west. Shak. Situated in the forty-first degree of latitude. Gibbon. Matter for censure in every page. Macaulay.

Blame; censure; crimination. Jefferson.

To indict; to accuse; to censure. [Obs.] Spenser.

sins, after the guilt of sin has been remitted by sincere repentance; absolution from the censures and public penances of the church. It is a payment of the debt of justice to God by the application of the merits of Christ and his saints to the contrite soul through the church. It is therefore believed to diminish or d…

ning; tolerant; mild; favorable; not severe; as, an indulgent parent. Shak. The indulgent censure of posterity. Waller. The feeble old, indulgent of their ease. Dryden.

sness; fruitlessness; as, the inefficacy of medicines or means. The seeming inefficacy of censures. Bp. Hall. The inefficacy was soon proved, like that of many similar medicines. James Gregory.

An expression which inveighs or rails against a person; a severe or violent censure or reproach; something uttered or written, intended to cast opprobrium, censure, or reproach on another; a harsh or reproachful accusation; -- followed by against, having reference to the person or thing affected; as an invective agains…

A personal satire in writing; usually, malicious and abusive censure written only to reproach and distress. Like her who missed her name in a lampoon, And grieved to find herself decayed so soon. Dryden.

To scold; to berate; to satirize; to censure with severity; as, to lash vice.

A diminution or softening of statement for the sake of avoiding censure or increasing the effect by contrast with the moderation shown in the form of expression; as, " a citizen of no mean city," that is, of an illustrious city.