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Downfall; degradation; loss of greatness or office; termination of greatness, power, or dominion; ruin; overthrow; as, the fall of the Roman empire. Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall. Pope.

Any one of those words which are the appellations of females, or which have the terminations usually found in such words; as, actress, songstress, abbess, executrix. There are but few true feminines in English. Latham.

The act of giving figure or determinate form; determination to a certain form. Bacon.

Close; termination; as:

To determine an issue of fact, and to declare such a determination to a court; as, the jury find for the plaintiff. Burrill.

End; conclusion; termination; extinction. [Obs.] "To see their fatal fine." Spenser. Is this the fine of his fines Shak.

An unnatural or excessive flow of blood or fluid toward any organ; a determination.

Previous contrivance or determination; predetermination. He makes this difference to arise from the forecast and predetermination of the gods themselves. Addison.

Previous ordination or appointment; predetermination; predestination.

Serving to form; derivative; not radical; as, a termination merely formative.

In some columns, that part of the capital between the termination of the shaft and the annulet of the echinus, or the space between two neck moldings; -- called also neck of the capital, and hypotrachelium. See Illust. of Column.

o stop or pause respecting decision or action; to be in suspense or uncertainty as to a determination; as, he hesitated whether to accept the offer or not; men often hesitate in forming a judgment. Pope.

A termination denoting state, condition, quality, character, totality, as in manhood, childhood, knighthood, brotherhood. Sometimes it is written, chiefly in obsolete words, in the form - head.

Mounted soldiery; cavalry; -- used without the plural termination; as, a regiment of horse; -- distinguished from foot. The armies were appointed, consisting of twenty-five thousand horse and foot. Bacon.

That branch of surveying which embraces the determination of the contour of the bottom of a harbor or other sheet of water, the depth of soundings, the position of channels and shoals, with the construction of charts exhibiting these particulars.

Of or pertaining to an hydrometer, or to the determination of the specific gravity of fluids.

That branch of physics which relates to the determination of the humidity of bodies, particularly of the atmosphere, with the theory and use of the instruments constructed for this purpose.

rm, mode of expression, or signification, peculiar to a language. Scholars sometimes give terminations and idiotisms, suitable to their native language, unto words newly invented. M. Hale.

mind, or operates on the passions; that which incites, or has a tendency to incite, to determination or action; that which prompts to good or ill; motive; spur; as, the love of money, and the desire of promotion, are two powerful incentives to action. The greatest obstacles, the greatest terrors that come in their way…

Want of decision; want of settled purpose, or of firmness; indetermination; wavering of mind; irresolution; vacillation; hesitation. The term indecision . . . implies an idea very nicely different from irresolution; yet it has a tendency to produce it. Shenstone. Indecision . . . is the natural accomplice of violence.…