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heavy, irrespirable gas, extinguishing flame, and when breathed destroys life. It can be reduced to a liquid and solid form by intense pressure. It is produced in the fermentation of liquors, and by the combustion and decomposition of organic substances, or other substances containing carbon. It is formed in the explos…

A book containing a summary of principles, especially of religious doctrine, reduced to the form of questions and answers. The Jews, even till this day, have their catechisms. Hooker. The Larger Catechism, The Shorter Catechism. See Westminster Assembly, under Assembly.

One of the highest classes to which the objects of knowledge or thought can be reduced, and by which they can be arranged in a system; an ultimate or undecomposable conception; a predicament. The categories or predicaments -- the former a Greek word, the latter its literal translation in the Latin language -- were inte…

A mild kind caustic used to reduce warts and other excrescences. Dunglison.

To reduce to coal or carbon by exposure to heat; to reduce to charcoal; to burn to a cinder.

To reduce to order or obedience; to correct or purify; to free from faults or excesses. The gay, social sense, by decency chastised. Thomson.

To cut small pieces from; to diminsh or reduce to shape, by cutting away a little at a time; to hew. Shak.

at law, and which does not exist at the time in specie; a personal right to a thing not reduced to possession, but recoverable by suit at law; as a right to recover money due on a contract, or damages for a tort, which can not be enforced against a reluctant party without suit. -- Chose in possession, a thing in poss…

Subject to government; reduced to order; civilized; not barbarous; -- said of the community. England was very rude and barbarous; for it is but even the other day since England grew civil. Spenser.

To be entitled to anything; to deduce a right or title; to have a claim. We must know how the first ruler, from whom any one claims, came by his authority. Locke.

of the livery to indicate that the wearer is the servant of a military or naval officer. Seduced by military liveries and cockades. Burke.

To reduce to a code, as laws.

To seduce, or draw away, by adulation, artifice, or falsehood; to wheedle; to cozen; to cheat. [R.] I'll . . . cog their hearts from them. Shak.

To reduce to a common measure. Sir T. Browne.

To reduce to minute particles, or to a fine powder; to pulverize; to triturate; to grind; as, to comminute chalk or bones; to comminute food with the teeth. Pennant. Comminuted fracture. See under Fracture.

To enter in a commonplace book, or to reduce to general heads. Felton.

t, a ticket, as for transportation, which is the evidence of a contract for service at a reduced rate. See 2d Commute, 2.

A ticket for transportation at a reduced rate in consideration of some special circumstance, as increase of travel; specif., a ticket for a certain number of, or for daily, trips between neighboring places at a reduced rate, such as are commonly used by those doing business in a city and living in a suburb. Commutation…

To dispose in proper form; to reduce to order; to put in proper state or condition; to adjust; to regulate. In a peaceful grave my corpse compose. Dryden. How in safety best we may Compose our present evils. Milton.

To press or squeeze together; to force into a narrower compass; to reduce the volume of by pressure; to compact; to condense; as, to compress air or water. Events of centuries . . . compressed within the compass of a single life. D. Webster. The same strength of expression, though more compressed, runs through his hist…