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To decide; to judge; to sentence; to condemn. [Obs.] Claudius . . . Was demed for to hang upon a tree. Chaucer.

dignity; to strip of honors; as, to degrade a nobleman, or a general officer. Prynne was sentenced by the Star Chamber Court to be degraded from the bar. Palfrey.

An officer whose duty it was to announce the doom or sentence pronounced by the court.

r peers as derogatory to their other. Macaulay. Derogatory clause in a testament (Law), a sentence of secret character inserted by the testator alone, of which he reserves the knowledge to himself, with a condition that no will he may make thereafter shall be valid, unless this clause is inserted word for word; -- a pr…

bring to a conclusion, as a question or controversy; to settle authoritative or judicial sentence; to decide; as, the court has determined the cause.

To refuse official approbation to; to disallow; to decline to sanction; as, the sentence of the court-martial was disapproved by the commander in chief.

state disfranchised; deprivation of privileges of citizenship or of chartered immunities. Sentenced first to dismission from the court, and then to disfranchisement and expulsion from the colony. Palfrey.

A saying in which two members of the sentence are contrasted; an antithetical proverb. [Obs.] Italy, a paradise for horses, a hell for women, as the diverb goes. Burton.

comparison; as, the divinest mind. Sir J. Davies. "The divine Desdemona." Shak. A divine sentence is in the lips of the king. Prov. xvi. 10. But not to one in this benighted age Is that diviner inspiration given. Gray.

g dark fears a being. As the light does the shadow. Longfellow. In unemphatic affirmative sentences do is, for the most part, archaic or poetical; as, "This just reproach their virtue does excite." Dryden. To do one's best, To do one's diligence (and the like), to exert one's self; to put forth one's best or most or mo…

Judgment; judicial sentence; penal decree; condemnation. The first dooms of London provide especially the recovery of cattle belonging to the citizens. J. R. Green. Now against himself he sounds this doom. Shak.

A day of sentence or condemnation; day of death. "My body's doomsday." Shak.

or the like; object aimed at or intended; intention; hence, also, import or meaning of a sentence or discourse; aim. He has made the drift of the whole poem a compliment on his country in general. Addison. Now thou knowest my drift. Sir W. Scott.

Suddenly darted out; uttered in short sentences; as, an ejaculatory prayer or petition.

A figure by which the same word is used both at the beginning and at the end of a sentence; as, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice." Phil. iv. 4.

A figure of speech in which the parts of a sentence or clause are repeated in inverse order, as in the following: -- O more exceeding love, or law more just Just law, indeed, but more exceeding love! Milton.

ort-lived; existing or continuing for a short time only. "Ephemeral popularity." V. Knox. Sentences not of ephemeral, but of eternal, efficacy. Sir J. Stephen. Ephemeral fly (Zoöl.), one of a group of neuropterous insects, belonging to the genus Ephemera and many allied genera, which live in the adult or winged state o…

A citation from some author, or a sentence framed for the purpose, placed at the beginning of a work or of its separate divisions; a motto.

An exclamatory sentence, or striking reflection, which sums up or concludes a discourse.

The emphatic repetition of a word or phrase, at the end of several sentences or stanzas.