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Ps. xxi. 6. This is the magistrate's peculiar province, to give countenance to piety and virtue, and to rebuke vice. Atterbury.

ction; contrariwise; - - used chiefly with run or go. Running counter to all the rules of virtue. Locks.

desirous; eager to obtain; -- used in a good sense. [Archaic] Covetous of wisdom and fair virtue. Shak. Covetous death bereaved us all, To aggrandize one funeral. Emerson.

rn cramp bones into chess men." Dickens. -- Cramp ring, a ring formerly supposed to have virtue in averting or curing cramp, as having been consecrated by one of the kings of England on Good Friday.

examiner or judge; a caviler; a carper. When an author has many beauties consistent with virtue, piety, and truth, let not little critics exalt themselves, and shower down their ill nature. I. Watts. You know who the critics are the men who have failed in literature and art. Beaconsfield.

Affiction regarded as a test of patience or virtue; trial; disappointment; opposition; misfortune. Heaven prepares a good man with crosses. B. Jonson.

wild, licentious savage. Addison. The mind of man hath need to be prepared for piety and virtue; it must be cultivated to the end. Tillotson.

To bend; to crouch; to cringe. [Obs.] Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. Shak.

in bed. Jerrold. A curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. W. Irving. -- The curtain falls, the performance closes. -- The curtain rises, the performance begins. -- To draw the curtain, to close ot over an object, or to remove it; hence: (a) To hi…

or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal. So smooth he daubed his vice with show of virtue. Shak.

Corruption of fidelity; seduction from virtue, duty, or allegiance. The republic of Paris will endeavor to complete the debauchery of the army. Burke.

The act of corrupting; the act of seducing from virtue or duty.

; corruption; rottenness; decline; deterioration; as, the decay of the body; the decay of virtue; the decay of the Roman empire; a castle in decay. Perhaps my God, though he be far before, May turn, and take me by the hand, and more -May strengthen my decays. Herbert. His [Johnson's] failure was not to be ascribed to i…

f towards a worse state; a downward tendency; deterioration; decay; as, the declension of virtue, of science, of a state, etc. Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts To base declension. Shak.

e diminished or impaired; to fail; to sink; to diminish; to lessen; as, the day declines; virtue declines; religion declines; business declines. That empire must decline Whose chief support and sinews are of coin. Waller. And presume to know . . . Who thrives, and who declines. Shak.

The act or process of boiling anything in a watery fluid to extract its virtues. In decoction . . . it either purgeth at the top or settleth at the bottom. Bacon.

To render infamous; to bring into disrepute. My guilt thy growing virtues did defame; My blackness blotted thy unblemish'd name. Dryden.

Fault; offense; ill deed; wrong act; failure in virtue or wisdom. And pardon craved for his so rash default. Spenser. Regardless of our merit or default. Pope.

o expound or interpret; as, to define a word, a phrase, or a scientific term. They define virtue to be life ordered according to nature. Robynson (More's Utopia).

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