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To make fit or susceptible beforehand; to give a tendency to; as, debility predisposes the body to disease. Predisposing causes (Med.), causes which render the body liable to disease; predisponent causes.

The act of predisposing, or the state of being predisposed; previous inclination, tendency, or propensity; predilection; -- applied to the mind; as, a predisposition to anger.

Having a tendency by nature; prone; proclivous. [R.] Mrs. Browning.

Inclination; propensity; proneness; tendency. "A proclivity to steal." Abp. Bramhall.

state of being propense; natural inclination; disposition to do good or evil; bias; bent; tendency. "A propensity to utter blasphemy." Macaulay.

Design or tendency; meaning; import; tenor. The whole scope and purport of that dialogue. Norris. With a look so piteous in purport As if he had been loosed out of hell. Shak.

Any action in resisting other action or force; counter tendency; movement in a contrary direction; reverse action.

An oversounding, or a misuse, of the letter r; specifically (Phylol.), the tendency, exhibited in the Indo-European languages, to change s to r, as wese to were.

Tendency to promote salvation. Johnson.

esy degeneration of the lymphatic glands, particularly those of the neck, and marked by a tendency to the development of chronic intractable inflammations of the skin, mucous membrane, bones, joints, and other parts, and by a diminution in the power of resistance to disease or injury and the capacity for recovery. Scro…

The quality of being secretive; disposition or tendency to conceal.

The love of one's self; desire of personal happiness; tendency to seek one's own benefit or advantage. Shak. Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul. Pope.

, an American fern (Onoclea sensibilis), the leaves of which, when plucked, show a slight tendency to fold together. -- Sensitive flame (Physics), a gas flame so arranged that under a suitable adjustment of pressure it is exceedingly sensitive to sounds, being caused to roar, flare, or become suddenly shortened or ext…

Tendency to putrefaction; septic quality.

With a tendency to use the left hand. Many, in their infancy, are sinistrously disposed, and divers continue all their life left-handed. Sir T. Browne.

aming. Skin friction, Skin resistance (Naut.), the friction, or resistance, caused by the tendency of water to adhere to the immersed surface (skin) of a vessel. -- Skin graft (Surg.), a small portion of skin used in the process of grafting. See Graft, v. t., 2. -- Skin moth (Zoöl.), any insect which destroys the pre…

ith a great variety of meaning, . . . even by economists and learned critics. The general tendency is to regard as socialistic any interference undertaken by society on behalf of the poor, . . . radical social reform which disturbs the present system of private property . . . The tendency of the present socialism is mo…

The tendency to separate readily into parts by spurious articulations, as the pods of tick trefoil.

Tendency or progress southward; as, the southing of the sun. Emerson.

A tendency in the end of a magnetic needle to point toward the south pole. Faraday.