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The state of being acted upon; subjection to an external agent or influence; a passive condition; -- opposed to action. A body at rest affords us no idea of any active power to move, and, when set is motion, it is rather a passion than an action in it. Locke.

Designating certain morbid conditions, as hemorrhage or dropsy, characterized by relaxation of the vessels and tissues, with deficient vitality and lack of reaction in the affected tissues. Passive congestion (Med.), congestion due to obstruction to the return of the blood from the affected part. -- Passive iron (Chem…

The quality or condition of any substance which has no inclination to chemical activity; inactivity.

The condition of being open, enlarged, or spread.

A land surface reduced by erosion to the general condition of a plain, but not wholly devoid of hills; a base-level plain.

The quality or condition of being penitent; the disposition of a penitent; sorrow for sins or faults; repentance; contrition. "Penitence of his old guilt." Chaucer. Death is deferred, and penitenance has room To mitigate, if not reverse, the doom. Dryden.

The office or condition of a penitentiary of the papal court. [R.] Wood.

The condition of a peon.

The act of tapping or striking the surface of the body in order to learn the condition of the parts beneath by the sound emitted or the sensation imparted to the fingers. Percussion is said to be immediate if the blow is directly upon the body; if some interventing substance, as a pleximeter, is, used, it is called med…

The state or condition of being perpetual. [Obs.] Testament of Love.

The quality or condition of an estate by which it becomes inalienable, either perpetually or for a very long period; also, the estate itself so modified or perpetuated.

The state or condition of being persecuted. Locke.

One of three relations or conditions (that of speaking, that of being spoken to, and that of being spoken of) pertaining to a noun or a pronoun, and thence also to the verb of which it may be the subject.

ate concerns; not public or general; as, personal comfort; personal desire. The words are conditional, -- If thou doest well, -- and so personal to Cain. Locke.

That quality of a law which concerns the condition, state, and capacity of persons. Burrill.

The state or condition of being petrified.

saturated solution, and vapor, the system is invariant, that is, there is only one set of conditions under which these four phases can exist in equilibrium. If only three phases be considered, the system is univariant, that is, the fixing of one condition, as temperature, determines the others.

The condition, character, aims, and habits of the class called Philistines. See Philistine, 3. [Recent] Carlyle. On the side of beauty and taste, vulgarity; on the side of morals and feeling, coarseness; on the side of mind and spirit, unintelligence, -- this is Philistinism. M. Arnold.

A condition of the penis in which the prepuce can not be drawn back so as to uncover the glans penis.

A motile condition in plants resulting from exposure to light. -- Pho`to*ton"ic, a.