Search the Dictionary

Reclining on the ground, as if too weak to stand, and tending to rise at the summit or apex; as, a decumbent stem. Gray.

A low condition; weakness; inability. [R.] A dejection of appetite. Arbuthnot.

xture, or constitution; softness; elegance; smoothness; tenderness; and hence, frailty or weakness; as, the delicacy of a fiber or a thread; delicacy of a hand or of the human form; delicacy of the skin; delicacy of frame.

Insanity; madness; esp. that form which consists in weakness or total loss of thought and reason; mental imbecility; idiocy.

to render corrupt or untrustworthy in morals, in discipline, in courage, spirit, etc.; to weaken in spirit or efficiency. The demoralizing example of profligate power and prosperous crime. Walsh. The vices of the nobility had demoralized the army. Bancroft.

Fully prostrate; humble; low; rude. [Obs.] How may weak mortal ever hope to file His unsmooth tongue, and his deprostrate style. G. Fletcher.

f bit], and devocalize it, we obtain a hiss which is quite distinct enough to stand for a weak (jh). H. Sweet.

To sink; to faint; to pine; to languish, with weakness, discouragement, love, etc. His heart died within, and he became as a stone. 1 Sam. xxv. 37. The young men acknowledged, in love letters, that they died for Rebecca. Tatler.

Diluting; making thinner or weaker by admixture, esp. of water. Arbuthnot.

f, by mixing; to reduce, especially by the addition of water; to temper; to attenuate; to weaken. Lest these colors should be diluted and weakened by the mixture of any adventitious light. Sir I. Newton.

Reduced in strength; thin; weak. -- Di*lut"ed*ly, adv.

One who, or that which, dilutes or makes thin, more liquid, or weaker.

Of obscure vision; not seeing clearly; hence, dull of apprehension; of weak perception; obtuse. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. Job xvii. 7. The understanding is dim. Rogers.

To lessen the authority or dignity of; to put down; to degrade; to abase; to weaken. This doth nothing diminish their opinion. Robynson (More's Utopia). I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. Ezek. xxix. 15. O thou . . . at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads. Milton.…

ation; want of union. Nothing was therefore to be left in all the subordinate members but weakness, disconnection, and confusion. Burke.

The act of discouraging, or the state of being discouraged; depression or weakening of confidence; dejection.

or disturbing the performance of the vital functions, and causing or threatening pain and weakness; malady; affection; illness; sickness; disorder; -- applied figuratively to the mind, to the moral character and habits, to institutions, the state, etc. Diseases desperate grown, By desperate appliances are relieved. Sha…

To enervate; to weaken. [R.] Sydney Smith.

ho conceals his opinions or dispositions under a false appearance; a hypocrite. It is the weakest sort of politicians that are the greatest dissemblers. Bacon. Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. Pope.

With nerves unstrung; weak. [Obs.] Spenser.