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A description or record of past time; history. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

A set; a kind or description, species or variety. She had lost one class energies. Macaulay.

A description of climates.

sily reasisted. No better nor more cogent reason. Dr. H. More. Proofs of the most cogent description. Tyndall. The tongue whose strains were cogent as commands, Revered at home, and felt in foreign lands. Cowper.

printer's name, etc., formerly placed on the last page of a book. The colophon, or final description, fell into disuse, and . . . the title page had become the principal direct means of identifying the book. De Morgan. The book was uninjured from title page to colophon. Sir W. Scott.

Specious; plausible; aborned so as to appear well; as, a highly colored description. Sir G. C. Lewis. His colored crime with craft to cloke. Spenser.

A description of, or a treatise concerning, comets.

to a man's person, being granted to him and his heirs by deed; or it may be claimed by prescriptive right, as by a parson of a church or other corporation sole. Blackstone. -- Common of estovers, the right of taking wood from another's estate. -- Common of pasture, the right of feeding beasts on the land of another.…

ontracts for the sale of real eatate, in which it is customary to privide that errors in description, etc., shall not avoid, but shall be the subject of compensation. Compensation balance, or Compensated balance, a kind of balance wheel for a timepiece. The rim is usually made of two different expansibility under chang…

A description of the world or of the universe; or the science which teaches the constitution of the whole system of worlds, or the figure, disposition, and relation of all its parts.

The theory or description of the universe, as a system displaying order and harmony. Humboldt.

ered as unwritten law, and resting for authority on long consent; usage. See Usage, and Prescription.

The act of defining; definition; description. [Obs.] Shak.

Act of ascertaining and explaining the signification; a description of a thing by its properties; an explanation of the meaning of a word or term; as, the definition of "circle;" the definition of "wit;" an exact definition; a loose definition. Definition being nothing but making another understand by words what the te…

A delineated picture; representation; sketch; description in words. Their softest delineations of female beauty. W. Irving.

That delineates; descriptive; drawing the outline; delineating.

An anatomical description of, or treatise on, the skin.

That can be described; capable of description.

To use the faculty of describing; to give a description; as, Milton describes with uncommon force and beauty.

and make known; to point out; to name; to indicate; to show; to distinguish by marks or description; to specify; as, to designate the boundaries of a country; to designate the rioters who are to be arrested.