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An original faculty or endowment. Nature in your principles hath set [benignity]. Chaucer. Those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering. Stewart.

e room or apartment; private prayer. Reason . . . then retires Into her private cell when nature rests. Milton.

Having the nature of a problem; not shown in fact; questionable; uncertain; unsettled; doubtful. -- Prob`lem*at"ic*al*ly, adv. Diligent inquiries into remote and problematical guilt leave a gate wide open to . . . informers. Swift.

ceeding; as, the process of vegetation or decomposition; a chemical process; processes of nature. Tell her the process of Antonio's end. Shak.

Having a tendency by nature; prone; proclivous. [R.] Mrs. Browning.

Inclined; tending by nature. [R.]

pense; extravagantly; wasteful; profusely; lavishly; as, an estate prodigally dissipated. Nature not bounteous now, but lavish grows; Our paths with flowers she prodigally strows. Dryden.

Of the nature of a prodigy; marvelous; wonderful; portentous. [Obs. or R.] Spenser. It is prodigious to have thunder in a clear sky. Sir T. Browne.

Something extraordinary, or out of the usual course of nature, from which omens are drawn; a portent; as, eclipses and meteors were anciently deemed prodigies. So many terrors, voices, prodigies, May warn thee, as a sure foregoing sign. Milton.

Apt to make unexpected revelations. [Obs.] "Nature is proditorious." Sir H. Wotton.

Of the nature of a prolegomenon; preliminary; introductory; prefatory.

Belonging to, or partaking of the nature of, a pronoun.

ation or successive production; as, the propagation of animals or plants. There is not in nature any spontaneous generation, but all come by propagation. Ray.

Befitting one's nature, qualities, etc.; suitable in all respect; appropriate; right; fit; decent; as, water is the proper element for fish; a proper dress. The proper study of mankind is man. Pope. In Athens all was pleasure, mirth, and play, All proper to the spring, and sprightly May. Dryden.

To form with symmetry or suitableness, as the parts of the body. Nature had proportioned her without any fault. Sir P. Sidney.

Pertaining to, or in the nature of, a proposition; considered as a proposition; as, a propositional sense. I. Watts.

d no mention hereof in ancient zoögraphers, . . . who seldom forget proprieties of such a nature. Sir T. Browne.

Of or pertaining to proscription; consisting in, or of the nature of, proscription; proscribing. Burke. -- Pro*scrip"tive*ly, adv.

A summary, plan, or scheme of something proposed, affording a prospect of its nature; especially, an exposition of the scheme of an unpublished literary work.

A provisional group in which are placed a number of low microscopic organisms of doubtful nature. Some are probably plants, others animals.