Search the Dictionary

To regard as matter; to consider or explain by the laws or principles which are appropriate to matter.

wth and development; fitted by growth and development for any function, action, or state, appropriate to its kind; full-grown; ripe. Now is love mature in ear. Tennison. How shall I meet, or how accost, the sage, Unskilled in speech, nor yet mature of age Pope.

Suitable; fit; proper; appropriate; qualified; convenient. It was meet that we should make merry. Luke xv. 32. To be meet with, to be even with; to be equal to. [Obs.]

A dwelling house, with the adjacent buildings and curtilage, and the adjoining lands appropriated to the use of the household. Cowell. Bouvier. They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, To lands in Kent, and messuages in York. Tennyson.

Of or pertaining to soldiers, to arms, or to war; belonging to, engaged in, or appropriate to, the affairs of war; as, a military parade; military discipline; military bravery; military conduct; military renown. Nor do I, as an enemy to peace, Troop in the throngs of military men. Shak.

To call by the wrong name; to give a wrong or inappropriate name to.

Employed to express sorrow or grief; worn or used as appropriate to the condition of one bereaved or sorrowing; as, mourning garments; a mourning ring; a mourning pin, and the like. Mourning bride (Bot.), a garden flower (Scabiosa atropurpurea) with dark purple or crimson flowers in flattened heads. -- Mourning dove (…

f place or posture; transference, by any means, from one situation to another; natural or appropriate motion; progress; advancement; as, the movement of an army in marching or maneuvering; the movement of a wheel or a machine; the party of movement.

interrupted by set arias, duets, etc., the music being determined throughout by dramatic appropriateness; musical drama of this character, in general. It involves the use of a kind of melodious declamation, the development of leitmotif, great orchestral elaboration, and a fusion of poetry, music, action, and scene int…

Free from what is unbecoming, inappropriate, or tawdry; simple and becoming; pleasing with simplicity; tasteful; chaste; as, a neat style; a neat dress.

The place, or apartment, in a house, appropriated to the care of children.

Of, pertaining to, or appropriate to, nymphs; inhabited by nymphs; as, a nymphean cave.

In a manner appropriate to obsequies. [Obs.] Whilst I a while obsequiously lament The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster. Shak.

To take notice of by appropriate conduct; to conform one's action or practice to; to keep; to heed; to obey; to comply with; as, to observe rules or commands; to observe civility. Ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. Ex. xii. 17. He wolde no such cursedness observe. Chaucer. Must I budge Must I observe you S…

c or sung; a lyric poem; esp., now, a poem characterized by sustained noble sentiment and appropriate dignity of style. Hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles. Shak. O! run; prevent them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at his blessed feet. Milton. Ode factor, one who makes, or who traffics in, odes; --…

Free; disengaged; unappropriated; as, to keep a day open for any purpose; to be open for an engagement.

uets, trios, etc., with orchestral accompaniment, preludes, and interludes, together with appropriate costumes, scenery, and action; a lyric drama.

To produce an appropriate physical effect; to issue in the result designed by nature; especially (Med.), to take appropriate effect on the human system.

Producing the appropriate or designed effect; efficacious; as, an operative dose, rule, or penalty.

casions, who writes, reads, and records all letters of a public nature, presents, with an appropriate address, those persons on whom honorary degrees are to be conferred, and performs other like duties; -- called also public orator.