Search the Dictionary

Any substance or mixture used to promote the fusion of metals or minerals, as alkalies, borax, lime, fluorite.

To nurse to life or activity; to cherish and promote by excitements; to encourage; to abet; to instigate; -- used often in a bad sense; as, to foment ill humors. Locke. But quench the choler you foment in vain. Dryden. Exciting and fomenting a religious rebellion. Southey.

To help onward; to advance; to promote; to accelerate; to quicken; to hasten; as, to forward the growth of a plant; to forward one in improvement.

One who forwards or promotes; a promoter. Udall.

To cherish; to promote the growth of; to encourage; to sustain and promote; as, to foster genius.

who looks propitiously on a cause, an institution, a project, and the like; a favorer; a promoter; as, a friend to commerce, to poetry, to an institution.

Having the temper and disposition of a friend; disposed to promote the good of another; kind; favorable.

To help forward; to promote; to advance; to forward; to help or assist. This binds thee, then, to further my design. Dryden. I should nothing further the weal public. Robynsom (More's Utopia).

One who furthers. or helps to advance; a promoter. Shak.

Tending to further, advance, or promote; helpful; advantageous. [R.] You will not find it furthersome. Carlyle.

. The resultant uniformly dehydrated blast effects great economy in fuel consumption, and promotes regularity of furnace operation, and certainty of furnace control.

That which possesses desirable qualities, promotes success, welfare, or happiness, is serviceable, fit, excellent, kind, benevolent, etc.; -- opposed to evil. There be many that say, Who will show us any good Ps. iv. 6.

A play designed to promote or display grace of motion. It consists in throwing a small hoop from one player to another, by means of two sticks in the hands of each. Called also grace hoop or hoops. Act of grace. See under Act. -- Day of grace (Theol.), the time of probation, when the offer of divine forgiveness is mad…

Serving to promote health of body or mind; wholesome; salubrious; salutary; as, a healthful air, diet. The healthful Spirit of thy grace. Book of Common Prayer.

to go or pass away, as time; to assist in removing. Locke. -- To help on, to forward; to promote by aid. -- To help out, to aid, as in delivering from a difficulty, or to aid in completing a design or task. The god of learning and of light Would want a god himself to help him out. Swift. -- To help over, to enable to…

inion held in opposition to the established or commonly received doctrine, and tending to promote a division or party, as in politics, literature, philosophy, etc.; -- usually, but not necessarily, said in reproach. New opinions Divers and dangerous, which are heresies, And, not reformed, may prove pernicious. Shak. Af…

a product or a future event] insistently, in a manner exaggerating the importance of; to promote flamboyantly. [wns=1] [WordNet 1.5]

Members of certain associations in Modern Europe, who combined to promote social reforms, by which they expected to raise men and society to perfection, esp. of one originated in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, professor of canon law at Ingolstadt, which spread rapidly for a time, but ceased after a few years.…

A person who excites or inflames factions, and promotes quarrels or sedition; an agitator; an exciter. Several cities . . . drove them out as incendiaries. Bentley.

Not expedient; not tending to promote a purpose; not tending to the end desired; inadvisable; unfit; improper; unsuitable to time and place; as, what is expedient at one time may be inexpedient at another. If it was not unlawful, yet it was highly inexpedient to use those ceremonies. Bp. Burnet.