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Habit; disposition; sort; kind. Shak. There are in later other decrees, made by popes of another kidney. Barrow. Millions in the world of this man's kidney. L'Estrange. Your poets, spendthrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence. Burns.

Any edict, decree, order, ordinance, statute, resolution, judicial, decision, usage, etc., or recognized, and enforced, by the controlling authority.

t or degree; to moderate; to qualify; to lower. Of his grace He modifies his first severe decree. Dryden.

f courts of equity, resorted to for the purpose of obtaining bail, or security to abide a decree. Kent.

A decree of the Congregation of the Council declaring invalid [so far as the laws of the Roman Catholic Church are concerned] any marriage of a Roman Catholic, or of a person who has ever been a Roman Catholic, if not contracted before a duty qualified priest (or the bishop of the diocese) and at least two witnesses. T…

, the right claimed in behalf of a State to nullify or make void, by its sovereign act or decree, an enactment of the general government which it deems unconstitutional.

Nonexistence; as, a decree of nullity of marriage is a decree that no legal marriage exists.

To obey (a judgment or decree).

To regulate, or establish, by appointment, decree, or law; to constitute; to decree; to appoint; to institute. Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month. 1 Kings xii. 32. And doth the power that man adores ordain Their doom Byron.

nent rule of action; a statute, law, regulation, rescript, or accepted usage; an edict or decree; esp., a local law enacted by a municipal government; as, a municipal ordinance. Thou wilt die by God's just ordinance. Shak. By custom and the ordinance of times. Shak. Walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the…

Ordaining; decreeing. [Obs.] Shak.

According or congruous with the doctrines of Scripture, the creed of a church, the decree of a council, or the like; as, an orthodox opinion, book, etc.

father; he owed his victoty to his lieutenants. Milton. O deem thy fall not owed to man's decree. Pope.

A decree or determination; a dictum. [Obs.] "The placits and opinions of other philosophers." Evelyn.

The place at Athens where the meetings of the people were held for making decrees, etc.

hair; to poll wool; to poll grass. Who, as he polled off his dart's head, so sure he had decreed That all the counsels of their war he would poll off like it. Chapman.

A solemn public ordinance or decree. A royal pragmatic was accordingly passed. Prescott.

Sir W. Hamilton. "Pragmatic poetry." M. Arnold. Pragmatic sanction, a solemn ordinance or decree issued by the head or legislature of a state upon weighty matters; -- a term derived from the Byzantine empire. In European history, two decrees under this name are particularly celebrated. One of these, issued by Charles V…

predetermine or foreordain; to appoint or ordain beforehand by an unchangeable purpose or decree; to preëlect. Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. Rom. viii. 29.

To decree beforehand; to foreordain; to predestinate. Young.