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; a stage in progression; grade; gradation; as, degrees of vice and virtue; to advance by slow degrees; degree of comparison.

To move slowly; to stop for a time; to linger; to tarry. There seem to be certain bounds to the quickness and slowness of the succession of those ideas, . . . beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten. Locke.

oice or decision; carefully considering the probable consequences of a step; circumspect; slow in determining; -- applied to persons; as, a deliberate judge or counselor. "These deliberate fools." Shak.

ith careful consideration, or deliberation; circumspectly; warily; not hastily or rashly; slowly; as, a purpose deliberately formed.

An expressed wish; a request; petition. And slowly was my mother brought To yield consent to my desire. Tennyson.

To bring to an end; to determine. See Determine. [Obs.] The sly, slow hours shall not determinate The dateless limit of thy dear exile. Shak.

ment theory (Biol.), the doctrine that animals and plants possess the power of passing by slow and successive stages from a lower to a higher state of organization, and that all the higher forms of life now in existence were thus developed by uniform laws from lower forms, and are not the result of special creative act…

ng devitrified. Specifically, the conversion of molten glassy matter into a stony mass by slow cooling, the result being the formation of crystallites, microbites, etc., in the glassy base, which are then called devitrification products.

considerable train of parts. It is used for overcoming great resistance or producing very slow or very rapid motion. -- Differential pulley. (Mach.) (a) A portable hoisting apparatus, the same in principle as the differential windlass. (b) A hoisting pulley to which power is applied through a differential gearing. --…

r the state of being dilated; expansion; dilatation. Mrs. Browning. At first her eye with slow dilation rolled. Tennyson. A gigantic dilation of the hateful figure. Dickens.

The quality of being dilatory; lateness; slowness; tardiness; sluggishness.

Marked by procrastination or delay; tardy; slow; sluggish; -- said of actions or measures. Alva, as usual, brought his dilatory policy to bear upon hiMotley. Dilatory plea (Law), a plea designed to create delay in the trial of a cause, generally founded upon some matter not connected with the merits of the case.…

rits; discouragement. [R.] Procter, in evident distress and dispiritment, was waiting the slow conclusion of this. Carlyle.

To draw slowly or heavily onward; to pull along the ground by main force; to haul; to trail; -- applied to drawing heavy or resisting bodies or those inapt for drawing, with labor, along the ground or other surface; as, to drag stone or timber; to drag a net in fishing. Dragged by the cords which through his feet were…

To utter in a slow, lengthened tone.

As if in a dream; softly; slowly; languidly. Longfellow.

To fall weakly and slowly. [Obs.] "The dribbling dart of love." Shak. (Meas. for Meas. , i. 3, 2). [Perhaps an error for dribbing.]

t of water or air; as, the ship drifted astern; a raft drifted ashore; the balloon drifts slowly east. We drifted o'er the harbor bar. Coleridge.

To rain slightly in very small drops; to fall, as water from the clouds, slowly and in fine particles; as, it drizzles; drizzling drops or rain. "Drizzling tears." Spenser.

To work sluggishly or slowly; to plod. [Obs.]