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The rendering to every one his due or right; just treatment; requital of desert; merited reward or punishment; that which is due to one's conduct or motives. This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips. Shak.

To let slip; to permit to devolve on another; to allow to pass. An appeal may be deserted by the appellant's lapsing the term of law. Ayliffe.

To desert; to abandon; to forsake; hence, to give up; to relinquish. Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. Mark x. 28. The heresies that men do leave. Shak.

ly dead; spiritless; powerless; dull; as, a lifeless carcass; lifeless matter; a lifeless desert; a lifeless wine; a lifeless story. -- Life"less*ly, adv. -- Life"less*ness, n.

To produce a litter. A desert . . . where the she-wolf still littered. Macaulay.

tentionally without just cause or excuse; as, a malicious act. Malicious abandonment, the desertion of a wife or husband without just cause. Burrill. -- Malicious mischief (Law), malicious injury to the property of another; -- an offense at common law. Wharton. -- Malicious prosecution or arrest (Law), a wanton prose…

A name given to lichens of the genus Lecanora, sometimes blown into heaps in the deserts of Arabia and Africa, and gathered and used as food.

Merit or desert; worth. My meed hath got me fame. Shak.

The quality or state of deserving well or ill; desert. Here may men see how sin hath his merit. Chaucer. Be it known, that we, the greatest, are misthought For things that others do; and when we fall, We answer other's merits in our name. Shak.

An optical effect, sometimes seen on the ocean, but more frequently in deserts, due to total reflection of light at the surface common to two strata of air differently heated. The reflected image is seen, commonly in an inverted position, while the real object may or may not be in sight. When the surface is horizontal,…

elves. Shak. Mutiny act (Law), an English statute reënacted annually to punish mutiny and desertion. Wharton.

ther side; indifference. Men who possess a state of neutrality in times of public danger, desert the interest of their fellow subjects. Addison.

A fertile or green spot in a waste or desert, esp. in a sandy desert.

To grace or honor exceedingly or beyond desert. [R.] Beau. & Fl.

flection; given to, or favorable to, earnest or melancholy musing. The pensive secrecy of desert cell. Milton. Anxious cares the pensive nymph oppressed. Pope.

The power or quality of persuading; persuasiveness. Is 't possible that my deserts to you Can lack persuasion Shak.

ays on their shining arms and burnished helmets. Addison. All fame is foreign but of true desert, Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart. Pope.

A beach; a strand; in the plains and deserts of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, a broad, level spot, on which subsequently becomes dry by evaporation. Bartlett.

The plant Myoporum deserti, often distinguished as Ellangowan poison bush or dogwood poison bush.

to excite fear; as, a pokerish place. [Colloq. U. S.] There is something pokerish about a deserted dwelling. Lowell.