Search the Dictionary

To speak for rhetorical display; to speak pompously, noisily, or theatrically; to make an empty speech; to rehearse trite arguments in debate; to rant. Grenville seized the opportunity to declaim on the repeal of the stamp act. Bancroft.

A conversation between two or more persons; particularly, a formal conservation in theatrical performances or in scholastic exercises.

rtaining to Dionysus or to the Dionysia; Bacchic; as, a Dionysiac festival; the Dionysiac theater at Athens.

nting; aim; line or point of tendency; direct line or course; as, the ship sailed in a southeasterly direction.

A small vane of bunting, feathers, or any other light material, carried at the masthead to indicate the direction of the wind. Totten.

One of several pieces fayed across the apron and lapped in the knightheads, or inside planking above the upper deck. Ham. Nav. Encyc.

A loose wench; a disreputable sweetheart. Shak.

Of or pertaining to the drama; appropriate to, or having the qualities of, a drama; theatrical; vivid. The emperor . . . performed his part with much dramatic effect. Motley.

In a dramatic manner; theatrically; vividly.

dress a ship (Naut.), to ornament her by hoisting the national colors at the peak and mastheads, and setting the jack forward; when dressed full, the signal flags and pennants are added. Ham. Nav. Encyc.

A gallery or circle in a theater, generally the first above the floor, in which originally dress clothes were customarily worn.

A curtain which drops or falls in front of the stage of a theater, etc.

A mistress; a sweetheart. I must ever have some Dulcinea in my head. Sterne.

, according to the notation of the mariner's compass, that point which lies 11 -- East-northeast, East-southeast, that which lie 22Illust. of Compass.

of a woman or a man, either married or unmarried, who runs away with a paramour or a sweetheart. Great numbers of them [the women] have eloped from their allegiance. Addison.

uilt market town. Macaulay. It is pride . . . which fills our streets, our emporiums, our theathers. Knox.

private, as by conversation, etc., or in public, by performances of some kind; amusement. Theatrical entertainments conducted with greater elegance and refinement. Prescott.

A tempestuous northeast wind which blows in the Mediterranean. See Levanter. A tempestuous wind called Euroclydon. Acts xxvii. 14.

A fair woman; a sweetheart. I have found out a gift for my fair. Shenstone.

To pass over water in a boat or by a ferry. They ferry over this Lethean sound Both to and fro. Milton.