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From office; by virtue, or as a consequence, of an office; officially.

delineate extravagantly ; to overstate the truth concerning. A friend exaggerates a man's virtues. Addison.

The refinement or subtilization of a body, or the increasing of its virtue or principal property.

t; state of possessing good qualities in an eminent degree; exalted merit; superiority in virtue. Consider first that great Or bright infers not excellence. Milton.

Excellence; virtue; dignity; worth; superiority. His excellency is over Israel. Ps. lxviii. 34. Extinguish in men the sense of their own excellency. Hooker.

provement whether physical, intellectual, or moral; practice to acquire skill, knowledge, virtue, perfectness, grace, etc. "Desire of knightly exercise." Spenser. An exercise of the eyes and memory. Locke.

y perceptible; visible; physical or corporeal, as distinguished from mental or moral. Her virtues graced with external gifts. Shak.

To elevate by praise; to eulogize; to praise; to magnify; as, to extol virtue; to extol an act or a person. Wherein have I so deserved of you, That you extol me thus Shak.

de by drawing out from any substance that which gives it its essential and characteristic virtue; essence; as, extract of beef; extract of dandelion; also, any substance so extracted, and characteristic of that from which it is obtained; as, quinine is the most important extract of Peruvian bark.

rom each other, the most widely different states, etc.; as, extremes of heat and cold, of virtue and vice; extremes meet. His parsimony went to the extreme of meanness. Bancroft.

d in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries, and maintained that flagellation was of equal virtue with baptism and the sacrament; -- called also disciplinant.

. 1. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not. Shak. For because, because. [Obs.] "Nor for because they set less store by their own citizens." Robynson (More's Utopia). -- For why. (a) Why; for that reas…

s, signifying violence. -- In force, or Of force, of unimpaired efficacy; valid; of full virtue; not suspended or reversed. "A testament is of force after men are dead." Heb. ix. 17. -- Metabolic force (Physiol.), the influence which causes and controls the metabolism of the body. -- No force, no matter of urgency o…

patience as the truest fortitude. Milton. Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues. Locke.

Liable to fall from virtue or be led into sin; not strong against temptation; weak in resolution; also, unchaste; -- often applied to fallen women. Man is frail, and prone to evil. Jer. Taylor.

in criminal favors from a female; freedom of principle or practice with respect to female virtue; intrigue.

mindedness. Generosity is in nothing more seen than in a candid estimation of other men's virtues and good qualities. Barrow.

gle, esp. the least angle, at which a gliding machine or aëroplane will glide to earth by virtue of gravity without applied power.

goes to the river; this road goes to New York. His amorous expressions go no further than virtue may allow. Dryden.

Resembling or befitting a god or God; divine; hence, preeminently good; as, godlike virtue. -- God"like`ness, n.