Search the Dictionary

ectly controlled by a demon. The demoniac in the gospel was sometimes cast into the fire. Bates.

of a bad quality. A desperate offendress against nature. Shak. The most desperate of reprobates. Macaulay.

To quiet or abate, as anger or grief.

In a gradually diminishing manner; with abatement of tone; decrescendo; -- expressed on the staff by Dim., or Dimin., or the sign.

To debate; to discuss. [R.] One dissertates, he is candid; Two must discept, -- has distinguished. R. Browning.

To deduct from an account, debt, charge, and the like; to make an abatement of; as, merchants sometimes discount five or six per cent for prompt payment of bills.

r by disputation; to reason upon by presenting favorable and adverse considerations; to debate; to sift; to investigate; to ventilate. "We sat and . . . discussed the farm . . . and the price of grain." Tennyson. "To discuss questions of taste." Macaulay.

The act of discussing or exchanging reasons; examination by argument; debate; disputation; agitation. The liberty of discussion is the great safeguard of all other liberties. Macaulay. Discussion of a problem or an equation (Math.), the operation of assigning different reasonable values to the arbitrary quantities and…

Disposing; tending to regulate; decretive. [Obs.] His dispositive wisdom and power. Bates.

against something maintained, upheld, or claimed, by another; to discuss; to reason; to debate; to altercate; to wrangle. Therefore disputed [reasoned, Rev. Ver .] he in synagogue with the Jews. Acts xvii. 17.

Disagreement in opinion, usually of a violent character, producing warm debates or angry words; contention in words; partisan and contentious divisions; breach of friendship and union; strife; discord; quarrel. Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them. Acts xv. 2. Debates, dissension, uproars…

Ruling arrogantly; overbearing. A violent, brutal, domineering old reprobate. Blackw. Mag.

decree of God, and in his eternal foreknowledge, into two classes, the elect and the reprobate.

The act rendering more violent or bitter; the state of being exacerbated or intensified in violence or malignity; as, exacerbation of passion.

y the use of the sword; the art and practice of fencing and sword play; hence, skill in debate and repartee. See Fencing. Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric, That hath so well been taught her dazzing fence. Milton. Of dauntless courage and consummate skill in fence. Macaulay.

A mineral of a brownish black color, essentially a tantalo- niobate of yttrium, erbium, and cerium; -- so called after Robert Ferguson.

Having lobate toes, as the coot and grebe.

Having toes connected by a membrane; palmiped; palmated; also, lobate.

ge consisting of rafts or timber, with a floor of plank, supported wholly by the water; a bateau bridge. See Bateau. (b) (Mil.) A kind of double bridge, the upper one projecting beyond the lower one, and capable of being moved forward by pulleys; -- used for carrying troops over narrow moats in attacking the outworks o…

Belonging to courts of judicature or to public discussion and debate; used in legal proceedings, or in public discussions; argumentative; rhetorical; as, forensic eloquence or disputes. Forensic medicine, medical jurisprudence; medicine in its relations to law.