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An association or community of recluses devoted to a religious life; a body of monks or nuns. One of our convent, and his [the duke's] confessor. Shak.

To ask with earnestness or importunity; to ask with submission or humility; to beg; to entreat; to beseech; to implore. I crave your honor's pardon. Shak. Joseph . . . went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. Mark xv. 43.

engagements. (b) The ability and fidelity of merchants or others who owe largely in a community. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. D. Webster.

question, as a witness who has been called and examined by the opposite party. "The opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses." Kent.

ives; -- applied to persons who have swallowed, or have seemed to swallow, knives with impunity. Dunglison.

Passing from person to person, or from hand to hand; circulating through the community; generally received; common; as, a current coin; a current report; current history. That there was current money in Abraham's time is past doubt. Arbuthnot. Your fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current. Shak. His current value, whi…

] An English tradesman is always solicitous to cut the shop whenever he can do so with impunity. Thomas Hamilton. To cut a caper. See under Caper. -- To cut the cards, to divide a pack of cards into portions, in order to determine the deal or the trump, or to change the cards to be dealt. -- To cut a dash or a figure…

Pertaining to a decillion, or to the quotient of unity divided by a decillion.

empty speech; to rehearse trite arguments in debate; to rant. Grenville seized the opportunity to declaim on the repeal of the stamp act. Bancroft.

To talk with vehemence, importunity, or reiteration; to bluster. [Low]

Want of concord or agreement; absence of unity or harmony in sentiment or action; variance leading to contention and strife; disagreement; -- applied to persons or to things, and to thoughts, feelings, or purposes. A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. Prov. vi. 19. Peace to ari…

indefatigably; to chase with a dog or dogs; to worry, as if by dogs; to hound with importunity. I have been pursued, dogged, and waylaid. Pope. Your sins will dog you, pursue you. Burroughs. Eager ill-bred petitioners, who do not so properly supplicate as hunt the person whom they address to, dogging him from place to…

A series of real events invested with a dramatic unity and interest. "The drama of war." Thackeray. Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last. Berkeley. The drama and contrivances of God's providence. S…

separated from the Mohammedan Arabs in the 9th century. Their characteristic dogma is the unity of God. Am. Cyc.

To form into a people or community; to inhabit; to people. [Obs.] We now know 't is very well empeopled. Sir T. Browne.

To enter into contest with; to encounter; to bring to conflict. A favorable opportunity of engaging the enemy. Ludlow.

Oneness; unity; -- applied to a condition of intimacy or close association. [Obs.] True Christian love may be separated from acquaintance, and acquaintance from entireness. Bp. Hall.

Common to, or affecting at the same time, a large number in a community; -- applied to a disease which, spreading widely, attacks many persons at the same time; as, an epidemic disease; an epidemic catarrh, fever, etc. See Endemic.

Shaped into one; tending to, or formative into, unity. [R.] Coleridge.

The great classes or orders of a community or state (as the clergy, the nobility, and the commonalty of England) or their representatives who administer the government; as, the estates of the realm (England), which are (1) the lords spiritual, (2) the lords temporal, (3) the commons.