Search the Dictionary

to fail; to become weak, corrupt, or disintegrated; to rot; to perish; as, a tree decays; fortunes decay; hopes decay. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Goldsmith.

l condition; affected with decay; rotten; as, decayed vegetation or vegetables; a decayed fortune or gentleman. -- De*cay"ed*ness, n.

ient; hence, respectable; fairly good; reasonably comfortable or satisfying; as, a decent fortune; a decent person. A decent retreat in the mutability of human affairs. Burke. -- De"cent*ly, adv. -- De"cent*ness, n.

Lowness of spirits occasioned by grief or misfortune; mental depression; melancholy. What besides, Of sorrow, and dejection, and despair, Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring. Milton.

ievable; past cure, or, at least, extremely dangerous; as, a desperate disease; desperate fortune.

them which despitefully use you. Matt. v. 44. Let us examine him with despitefulness and fortune. Book of Wisdom ii. 19.

heme for; to purpose to obtain. For wisdom is most riches; fools therefore They are which fortunes do by vows devise. Spenser.

Misfortune; mishap. [Obs.] Sir W. Raleigh.

An adverse or unfortunate event, esp. a sudden and extraordinary misfortune; a calamity; a serious mishap. But noble souls, through dust and heat, Rise from disaster and defeat The stronger. Longfellow.

Misfortune. [Obs.] Spenser.

Severe training, corrective of faults; instruction by means of misfortune, suffering, punishment, etc. A sharp discipline of half a century had sufficed to educate Macaulay.

tions; to displease by the want of something requisite; as, to be dissatisfied with one's fortune. The dissatisfied factions of the autocracy. Bancroft.

That which occasions suffering; painful situation; misfortune; affliction; misery. Affliction's sons are brothers in distress. Burns.

y; lost. His imaginary title of fatherhood is out of doors. Locke. -- To lay (a fault, misfortune, etc.) at one's door, to charge one with a fault; to blame for. -- To lie at one's door, to be imputable or chargeable to. If I have failed, the fault lies wholly at my door. Dryden.

lottery by the drawing out of the numbers for prizes or blanks; hence, to obtain by good fortune; to win; to gain; as, he drew a prize.

, driven to dismount, threatened, if I did not do the like, to do as much for my horse as fortune had done for his. Sir P. Sidney.

Pertaining to the household; domestic. "In this economical misfortune [of ill-assorted matrimony.]" Milton.

To engage, enlist, or invest (as persons, money, etc.) in any affair; as, he embarked his fortune in trade. It was the reputation of the sect upon which St. Paul embarked his salvation. South.

To accept; to undergo; to submit to. "I embrace this fortune patiently." Shak.

being; essence; existence. Self-subsisting entities, such as our own personality. Shairp. Fortune is no real entity, . . . but a mere relative signification. Bentley.