Search the Dictionary

Abounding in beauty, loveliness, or amiability; graceful; excellent. Since the birth of Cain, the first male child, . . . There was not such a gracious creature born. Shak.

A kind of fall apple, marked with streaks of deep red and orange, and of excellent flavor and quality.

which the Rhode Island greening is the best known for its fine-grained acid flesh and its excellent keeping quality.

The quality of being handsome. Handsomeness is the mere animal excellence, beauty the mere imaginative. Hare.

Dexterous; ready; apt; felicitous. One gentleman is happy at a reply, another excels in a in a rejoinder. Swift. Happy family, a collection of animals of different and hostile propensities living peaceably together in one cage. Used ironically of conventional alliances of persons who are in fact mutually repugnant. --…

box, and the like, in distinction from pine, poplar, hemlock, etc.- In hard condition, in excellent condition for racing; having firm muscles;-said of race horses.

Elevation in excellence of any kind, as in power, learning, arts; also, an advanced degree of social rank; preëminence or distinction in society; prominence. Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts. R. Browning. All would in his power hold, all make his subjects. Chapman.

ire, England. The Herefords are good working animals, and their beef-producing quality is excellent.

esteem, respect, or consideration; self-respect; dignity; courage; fidelity; especially, excellence of character; high moral worth; virtue; nobleness; specif., in men, integrity; uprightness; trustworthness; in women, purity; chastity. If she have forgot Honor and virtue. Shak. Godlike erect, with native honor clad. M…

o the base. Unlike the asses it has callosities, or chestnuts, on all its legs. The horse excels in strength, speed, docility, courage, and nobleness of character, and is used for drawing, carrying, bearing a rider, and like purposes.

sake I admit That a Scot may have humor, I'd almost said wit. Goldsmith. A great deal of excellent humor was expended on the perplexities of mine host. W. Irving. Aqueous humor, Crystalline humor or lens, Vitreous humor. (Anat.) See Eye. -- Out of humor, dissatisfied; displeased; in an unpleasant frame of mind.…

sun; in the later mythology identified with Apollo, and distinguished for his beauty. So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr. Shak.

Reaching an imaginary standard of excellence; fit for a model; faultless; as, ideal beauty. Byron. There will always be a wide interval between practical and ideal excellence. Rambler.

To make ideal; to give an ideal form or value to; to attribute ideal characteristics and excellences to; as, to idealize real life.

To make worse; to diminish in quantity, value, excellence, or strength; to deteriorate; as, to impair health, character, the mind, value. Time sensibly all things impairs. Roscommon. In years he seemed, but not impaired by years. Pope.

Inequality; disparity; disproportion; difference of degree, rank, excellence, number, etc. Milton.

Of superior or unusual size or excellence; as, imperial paper; imperial tea, etc. Imperial bushel, gallon, etc. See Bushel, Gallon, etc. -- Imperial chamber, the, the sovereign court of the old German empire. -- Imperial city, under the first German empire, a city having no head but the emperor. -- Imperial diet, an…

Incapable of being estimated or computed; especially, too valuable or excellent to be measured or fully appreciated; above all price; as, inestimable rights or privileges. But above all, for thine inestimable love. Bk. of Com. Prayer. Science is too inestimable for expression by a money standard. Lyon Playfair.…

In a manner, or to a degree, above estimation; as, things inestimably excellent.

Lower in place, rank, excellence, etc.; less important or valuable; subordinate; underneath; beneath. A thousand inferior and particular propositions. I. Watts. The body, or, as some love to call it, our inferior nature. Burke. Whether they are equal or inferior to my other poems, an author is the most improper judge.…