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(Nyctale Tengmalmi); -- so called from a superstition of the North American Indians that its note presages death.

A small beetle (Anobium tessellatum and other allied species). By forcibly striking its head against woodwork it makes a ticking sound, which is a call of the sexes to each other, but has been imagined by superstitious people to presage death.

Turned upside down from its proper position; inverted; reversed.

sides and ten angles; any figure having ten angles. A regular decagon is one that has all its sides and angles equal.

The act of pouring off a clear liquor gently from its lees or sediment, or from one vessel into another.

The act or process of boiling anything in a watery fluid to extract its virtues. In decoction . . . it either purgeth at the top or settleth at the bottom. Bacon.

A device for restoring a coherer to its normal condition after it has been affected by an electric wave, a process usually accomplished by some method of tapping or shaking, or by rotation of the coherer.

he act or process of resolving the constituent parts of a compound body or substance into its elementary parts; separation into constituent part; analysis; the decay or dissolution consequent on the removal or alteration of some of the ingredients of a compound; disintegration; as, the decomposition of wood, rocks, etc…

dded by way of embellishment; ornament. The hall was celebrated for . . . the richness of its decoration. Motley.

or embellish; adorning. -- Dec"o*ra*tive*ness, n. Decorative art, fine art which has for its end ornamentation, rather than the representation of objects or events.

-- with from or out of. O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes From the dire nation in its early times Pope. Reasoning is nothing but the faculty of deducing unknown truths from principles already known. Locke. See what regard will be paid to the pedigree which deduces your descent from kings and conquerors. Sir W.…

A shrub of the blueberry group (Vaccinium stamineum); also, its bitter, greenish white berry; -- called also squaw huckleberry.

To make ceremonially unclean; to pollute. That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile therewith. Lev. xxii. 8.

Abstraction of a child from its parents. Lamb.

The act of defining; determination of the limits; as, the telescope accurate in definition.

The deviation of a shot or ball from its true course.

Causing deflection. Deflective forces, forces that cause a body to deviate from its course.

Past the flowering state; having shed its pollen. Gray.

To fall off from the normal quality or the healthy structure of its kind; to become of a lower type.

That condition of a tissue or an organ in which its vitality has become either diminished or perverted; a substitution of a lower for a higher form of structure; as, fatty degeneration of the liver.