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much art, skill, or contrivance; dexterous; skillful. He [was] too artful a writer to set down events in exact historical order. Dryden.

by article; in distinct particulars; in detail; definitely. Paley. I had articulately set down in writing our points. Fuller.

Hale. To assimilate our law to the law of Scotland. John Bright. Fast falls a fleecy; the downy flakes Assimilate all objects. Cowper.

pheric line (Steam Engin.), the equilibrium line of an indicator card. Steam is expanded "down to the atmosphere" when its pressure is equal to that of the atmosphere. (See Indicator card.) -- Atmospheric pressure, the pressure exerted by the atmosphere, not merely downwards, but in every direction. In amounts to about…

Etym: [See At one.] [Obs.] Down he fell atones as a stone. Chaucer.

nts over children; the authority of a court. Thus can the demigod, Authority, Make us pay down for our offense. Shak. By what authority doest thou these things Matt. xxi. 23.

A large mass or body of snow and ice sliding swiftly down a mountain side, or falling down a precipice.

tion of the incumbent. Wolsey, . . . on every avoidance of St. Peter's chair, was sitting down therein, when suddenly some one or other clapped in before him. Fuller.

nt to an imperative: Go or come ~; begone; take ~. And the Lord said . . . Away, get thee down. Exod. xix. 24.

line of any design. Anticlinal axis (Geol.), a line or ridge from which the strata slope downward on the two opposite sides. -- Synclinal axis, a line from which the strata slope upward in opposite directions, so as to form a valley. -- Axis cylinder (Anat.), the neuraxis or essential, central substance of a nerve f…

To bet on the success of; -- as, to back a race horse. To back an anchor (Naut.), to lay down a small anchor ahead of a large one, the cable of the small one being fastened to the crown of the large one. -- To back the field, in horse racing, to bet against a particular horse or horses, that some one of all the other…

A kind of handwriting in which the downward slope of the letters is from left to right.

On the back, or with the back downward. Thou wilt fall backward. Shak.

To beat down; to cheapen; to barter; to bargain.

To swell or hang down like a full bag; as, the skin bags from containing morbid matter.

A piece of pork cut lower down than the sparerib, and destitute of fat. [Eng.] Southey.

, hackneyed, or trivial; the commonplace, in speech. The highest things were thus brought down to the banalities of discourse. J. Morley.

The short, front hair combed down over the forehead, esp. when cut squarely across; a false front of hair similarly worn. His hair cut in front like a young lady's bang. W. D. Howells.

To abase; to let, or cast, down; to lower. [Obs.] If any . . . based his pike. Sir T. North.

To lessen by retrenching, deducting, or reducing; to abate; to beat down; to lower. He must either bate the laborer's wages, or not employ or not pay him. Locke.