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Ruin; failure; sudden breaking down, as of a business house or a commercial enterprise.

Any enterprise undertaken with zeal and enthusiasm; as, a crusade against intemperance.

Hence, to publish the banns of, as for marriage. I should not be surprised if they were cried in church next Sabbath. Judd. To cry aim. See under Aim. -- To cry down, to decry; to depreciate; to dispraise; to condemn. Men of dissolute lives cry down religion, because they would not be under the restraints of it. Tillo…

Exciting attention or inquiry; awakening surprise; inviting and rewarding inquisitiveness; not simple or plain; strange; rare. "Acurious tale" Shak. A multitude of curious analogies. Mocaulay. Many a quaint and curiousvolume of forgotten lore. E. A. Poe. Abstruse investigations in recondite branches of learning or scie…

ay has been damped and darkened by an angry word! Sir J. Lubbock. The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers. Macaulay.

turesomeness; boldness; dash. [R.] It lends a luster . . . A large dare to our great enterprise. Shak.

To bewilder or surprise with brilliancy or display of any kind. "Dazzled and drove back his enemies." Shak.

The division of Cetacea which comprises the dolphins, porpoises, and related forms.

To take unwares or by surprise; to seize, as a person commiting an unlawful act; to catch; to apprehend. The deprehended adulteress.Jer. Taylor.

An expletive of surprise, vexation, or emphasis, or, ironically, of negation. [Low] The devil a puritan that he is, . . . but a timepleaser. Shak. The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. Pope.

ss; arduousness; -- opposed to easiness or facility; as, the difficulty of a task or enterprise; a work of difficulty. Not being able to promote them [the interests of life] on account of the difficulty of the region. James Byrne.

The body of managers of a corporation or enterprise; board of directors.

y, or connection; as, distant times; distant relatives. The success of these distant enterprises. Prescott.

Pertaining to dower, or a woman's marriage portion; constituting dower, or comprised in it. Garth.

lt. 'T is love, said she; and then my downcast eyes, And guilty dumbness, witnessed my surprise. Dryden. - Down"cast`ly, adv. -- Down"cast`ness, n.

That portion of the Christian church which prevails in the countries once comprised in the Eastern Roman Empire and the countries converted to Christianity by missionaries from them. Its full official title is The Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Eastern Church. It became estranged from the Western, or Roman, Church over th…

d political. J. C. Shairp. There was no economical distress in England to prompt the enterprises of colonization. Palfrey. Economic questions, such as money, usury, taxes, lands, and the employment of the people. H. C. Baird.

An exclamation expressing exultation or surprise, etc.

An expression of inquiry or slight surprise.

fense; to impale. All that dwell near enemies empale villages, to save themselves from surprise. Sir W. Raleigh.