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A neglect of, or failure to take, some step necessary to secure the benefit of law, as a failure to appear in court at a day assigned, especially of the defendant in a suit when called to make answer; also of jurors, witnesses, etc. In default of, in case of failure or lack of. Cooks could make artificial birds and fis…

Having steps; -- said of a cross each of whose extremities finishes in steps growing larger as they leave the center; -- termed also on degrees.

A step, stair, or staircase. [Obs.] By ladders, or else by degree. Rom. of R.

ts with a view a choice or decision; carefully considering the probable consequences of a step; circumspect; slow in determining; -- applied to persons; as, a deliberate judge or counselor. "These deliberate fools." Shak.

A step or remove downward in any scale of gradation; a degree in the scale of genealogy; a generation. No man living is a thousand descents removed from Adam himself. Hooker.

betrothing; betrothal. [Obs.] For all this desponsation of her . . . she had not set one step toward the consummation of her marriage. Jer. Taylor.

wearing off or away. Phonograms which by process long-continued detrition have reached a step of extreme simplicity. I. Taylor (The Alphabet).

Going out of the right or common course; going astray; erring; wandering; as, a devious step.

rticles from leather, cloth, paper, etc. -- The die is cast, the hazard must be run; the step is taken, and it is too late to draw back; the last chance is taken.

To step or turn aside; to deviate; to swerve; especially, to turn aside from the main subject of attention, or course of argument, in writing or speaking. Moreover she beginneth to digress in latitude. Holland. In the pursuit of an argument there is hardly room to digress into a particular definition as often as a man…

To make smaller by a half step; to make (an interval) less than minor; as, a diminished seventh.

feeling of censure. We have ever expressed the most unqualified disapprobation of all the steps. Burke.

The steps or operations by which steam is supplied to and withdrawn from the cylinder at each stroke of the piston; viz., admission, suppression or cutting off, release or exhaust, and compression of exhaust steam prior to the next admission. Geographical distribution, the natural arrangements of animals and plants in…

declaration, where either of such matters alone would be a sufficient bar to the action. Stephen. -- Double point (Geom.), a point of a curve at which two branches cross each other. Conjugate or isolated points of a curve are called double points, since they possess most of the properties of double points (see Conjug…

Of, or performed in, the fastest time or step in marching, next to the run; as, a double-quick step or march.

To lead along step by step; to entice. With daily lies she dribs thee into cost. Dryden.

To entice; to allure from step; to decoy; -- with on. [Obs.] See drilled him on to five-fifty. Addison.

A canoe or boat dug out from a large log. [U.S.] A man stepped from his slender dugout. G. W. Cable.

is no course of conduct for which dyslogistic or eulogistic epithets may be found. J. F. Stephen. The paternity of dyslogistic -- no bantling, but now almost a centenarian -- is adjudged to that genius of common sense, Jeremy Bentham. Fitzed. Hall.

rly spring; early fruit. Early and provident fear is the mother of safety. Burke. The doorsteps and threshold with the early grass springing up about them. Hawthorne.