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ist and his saints to the contrite soul through the church. It is therefore believed to diminish or destroy for sins the punishment of purgatory.

state. (c) To slander, tarnish, or impair, as reputation or character. (d) To impair or diminish, as happiness or virtue. (e) To give pain to, as the sensibilities or the feelings; to grieve; to annoy. (f) To impair, as the intellect or mind. When have I injured thee when done thee wrong Shak.

To act reciprocally, so as to augment, diminish, or otherwise affect one another; -- said of waves, rays of light, heat, etc. See Interference, 2.

e of iron which connects the two poles, for the purpose of keeping the magnetic power undiminished; an armature.

Saving labor; adapted to supersede or diminish the labor of men; as, laborsaving machinery.

To make less; to reduce; to make smaller, or fewer; to diminish; to lower; to degrade; as, to lessen a kingdom, or a population; to lessen speed, rank, fortune. Charity . . . shall lessen his punishment. Calamy. St. Paul chose to magnify his office when ill men conspired to lessen it. Atterbury.

to tell; to tattle; to divulge something. [Low] -- To let up, to become less severe; to diminish; to cease; as, when the storm lets up. [Colloq.]

Not of the legal, standard, or usual weight; clipped; diminished; as, light coin.

To fall; to sink; to grow less; to diminish; to decrease; as, the river lowered as rapidly as it rose.

Smoothness; freedom from friction; also, property, which diminishes friction; as, the lubricity of oil. Ray.

Greatly diminished size or form; reduced scale.

To make small, or smaller; to diminish the apparent dimensions of; to lessen.

To diminish. [R.] Sir T. Browne.

ere, intense, harsh, rigorous, painful, etc.; to soften; to meliorate; to alleviate; to diminish; to lessen; as, to mitigate heat or cold; to mitigate grief.

d a moving cylinder of moistened chalk, or a moving slip of paper, on which it rests is diminished by the passage of a current between the point and the moving surface. -- Mo`to*graph"ic (#), a.

To make pale; to diminish the brightness of. The glowpale his uneffectual fire. Shak.

Fig.: To diminish the bulk of; to reduce; to lessen. The king began to pare a little the privilege of clergy. Bacon.

Soft; -- a direction to the performer to execute a certain passage softly, and with diminished volume of tone. (Abbrev. p.)

A glass through which objects appear multiplied, but diminished in size. [R.]

Graphite, or black lead, often used on the bottoms of racing vessels to diminish friction.