Search the Dictionary

o provide with a shelter; to cover from injury or annoyance; to shield; to protect. Those ruins sheltered once his sacred head. Dryden. You have no convents . . . in which such persons may be received and sheltered. Southey.

Destructive; ruinous; disgraceful. [Obs.] -- Shend"ful*ly, adv. [Obs.] Fabyan.

Harm; ruin; also, reproach; disgrace. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Fig.: Destruction; ruin; irretrievable loss. Holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck. 1 Tim. 1. 19. It was upon an Indian bill that the late ministry had made shipwreck. J. Morley.

Figuratively: To cause to decline; to depress; to degrade; hence, to ruin irretrievably; to destroy, as by drowping; as, to sink one's reputation. I raise of sink, imprison or set free. Prior. If I have a conscience, let it sink me. Shak. Thy cruel and unnatural lust of power Has sunk thy father more than all his years…

To hurry to destruction; to put an end to; to ruin; to undo. "Sped with spavins." Shak. A dire dilemma! either way I 'm sped. If foes, they write, if friends, they read, me dead. Pope.

uman head, or the head of a ram or of a hawk, upon the wingless body of a lion. The awful ruins of the days of old . . . Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx. Shelley.

To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste. [Obs.] That thou wilt suffer innocents to spill. Chaucer.

To render useless by injury; to injure fatally; to ruin; to destroy; as, to spoil paper; to have the crops spoiled by insects; to spoil the eyes by reading.

One whose occupation is to make spurs. B. Jonson. "The saddlers and spurriers would be ruined by thousands." Macaulay.

ilding resting on its foundation. It stands as it were to the ground yglued. Chaucer. The ruined wall Stands when its wind worn battlements are gone. Byron.

A lizard (Stellio vulgaris), common about the Eastern Mediterranean among ruins. In color it is olive-green, shaded with black, with small stellate spots. Called also hardim, and star lizard.

happen. A future state must needs subvene to prevent the whole edifice from falling into ruin. Bp. Warburton.

the state of being overturned; entire overthrow; an overthrow from the foundation; utter ruin; destruction; as, the subversion of a government; the subversion of despotic power; the subversion of the constitution. The subversion [by a storm] of woods and timber . . . through my whole estate. Evelyn. Laws have been oft…

Tending to subvert; having a tendency to overthrow and ruin. Lying is a vice subversive of the very ends and design of conversation. Rogers.

To overturn from the foundation; to overthrow; to ruin utterly. These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength, With which he yoketh your rebellious necks, Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns. Shak. This would subvert the principles of all knowledge. Locke.

Ruin of one's own interests. "Intestine war, which may be justly called political suicide." V. Knox.

rstructure. My own profession hath taught me not to erect new superstructions upon an old ruin. Denham.

Fig.: To plunge into difficulties and perils; to overwhelm; to ruin; to wreck. The Whig majority of the house of Lords was swamped by the creation of twelve Tory peers. J. R. Green. Having swamped himself in following the ignis fatuus of a theory. Sir W. Hamilton.

r obsequiously flattering; courting favor by mean adulation; parasitic. To be cheated and ruined by a sycophantical parasite. South. Sycophantic servants to the King of Spain. De Quincey.