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One who dances or who practices dancing. The merry dancers, beams of the northern lights when they rise and fall alternately without any considerable change of length. See Aurora borealis, under Aurora.

A female dancer. [Obs.] Wyclif.

Deeply indented; having large teeth; thus, a fess dancetté has only three teeth in the whole width of the escutcheon.

Failure; miscarriage. [Obs.] Possibility of defailance in degree or continuance. Comber.

A defeat; an overthrow. [Obs.] After his foes' defeasance. Spenser.

Liable to defeasance; capable of being made void or forfeited.

king to combat; a challenge; a provocation; a summons to combat. A war without a just defiance made. Dryden. Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down. Tennyson.

ivering or freeing from restraint, captivity, peril, and the like; rescue; as, the deliverance of a captive. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives. Luke iv. 18. One death or one deliverance we will share. Dryden.

Demeanor. [Obs.] Skelton.

A light lance; a short spear; a half pike; also, a demilancer.

A soldier of light cavalry of the 16th century, who carried a demilance.

Demonstration; proof. [Obs.] Holland.

Denial. [Obs.] E. Hall.

See Dependent, Dependence, Dependency.

; cessation. [R.] Boyle. If fatigue of body or brain were in every case followed by desistance . . . then would the system be but seldom out of working order. H. Spencer.

Neglect of disuse of familiarity, or familiar acquaintance. [Obs.] South.

To draw back, or cause to draw back. [Obs.] Spenser.

Overthrow or annulment by the decision of a superior tribunal; as, disaffirmance of judgment.

Disagreement. [Obs.]

The act of disallowing; refusal to admit or permit; rejection.