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moving or aimed to move, or in which anything is lying or pointing; aim; line or point of tendency; direct line or course; as, the ship sailed in a southeasterly direction.

To give a tendency or inclination to; to adapt; to cause to turn; especially, to incline the mind of; to give a bent or propension to; to incline; to make inclined; -- usually followed by to, sometimes by for before the indirect object. Endure and conquer; Jove will soon dispose To future good our past and present woes…

Tendency to any action or state resulting from natural constitution; nature; quality; as, a disposition in plants to grow in a direction upward; a disposition in bodies to putrefaction.

Belonging to disposition or natural, tendency. [Obs.] "Dispositive holiness." Jer. Taylor.

ipated those foggy mists of error. Selden. I soon dissipated his fears. Cook. The extreme tendency of civilization is to dissipate all intellectual energy. Hazlitt.

Having a tendency to dissolve social connections; unsuitable to society; unsociable.

lf of prejudices, passions, etc. Wretches divested of every moral feeling. Goldsmith. The tendency of the language to divest itself of its gutturals. Earle.

Having in the head a sensation of whirling, with a tendency to fall; vertiginous; giddy; hence, confused; indistinct. Alas! his brain was dizzy. Drayton.

The tendency of an act, argument, course of conduct, or the like; object aimed at or intended; intention; hence, also, import or meaning of a sentence or discourse; aim. He has made the drift of the whole poem a compliment on his country in general. Addison. Now thou knowest my drift. Sir W. Scott.

Tendency; drift. [R.]

Having a tendency to prevent the development of anything, especially of a disease.

Having a tendency to purify or to sweeten by removing or correcting acidity and acrimony.

ure or dimensions, after the removal of external pressure or altering force; springiness; tendency to rebound; as, the elasticity of caoutchouc; the elasticity of the air.

the conditions of an elective kingdom. Dryden. Elective affinity or attraction (Chem.), a tendency to unite with certain things; chemism.

Having the property of being attracted by an electro-positive body, or a tendency to pass to the positive pole in electrolysis, by the law that opposite electricities attract each other.

Tendency to emission; comparative facility of emission, or rate at which emission takes place, as of heat from the surface of a heated body.

The cultivation of an emotional state of mind; tendency to regard things in an emotional manner.

Having power, or a tendency, to enervate; weakening. [R.]

Having power or a tendency to exert; using exertion.

Having a capacity or tendency to expand or dilate; diffusive; of much expanse; wide-extending; as, the expansive force of heat; the expansive quality of air. A more expansive and generous compassion. Eustace. His forehead was broad and expansive. Prescott. -- Ex*pan"sive*ly, adv. -Ex*pan"sive*ness, n.…