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A prolonged or exhaustive discussion; especially, an acrimonious or invective harangue; a strain of abusive or railing language; a philippic. The ephemeral diatribe of a faction. John Morley.

Poured out; widely spread; not restrained; copious; full; esp., of style, opposed to concise or terse; verbose; prolix; as, a diffuse style; a diffuse writer. A diffuse and various knowledge of divine and human things. Milton.

ntenance, or give the support of one's approval to; to give one's influence against; to restrain by cold treatment; to discourage. A town meeting was convened to discountenance riot. Bancroft.

Freedom to act according to one's own judgment; unrestrained exercise of choice or will. At discretion, without conditions or stipulations.

Left to discretion; unrestrained except by discretion or judgment; as, an ambassador with discretionary powers.

Freed from restraint; unrestrained. [Archaic] E. A. Poe.

Not complying with the restraints of order and law; tumultuous; unruly; lawless; turbulent; as, disorderly people; disorderly assemblies.

To play; to wanton; to move in gayety; to move lightly and without restraint; to amuse one's self. Where light disports in ever mingling dyes. Pope. Childe Harold basked him in the noontide sun, Disporting there like any other fly. Byron.

Without penal restraint; not punishable. [R.] Swift.

Loosed from restraint; esp., loose in morals and conduct; recklessly abandoned to sensual pleasures; profligate; wanton; lewd; debauched. "A wild and dissolute soldier." Motley.

A withholding of intimacy; alienation; coldness; disagreement; variance; restraint; reserve. Setting them [factions] at distance, or at least distrust amongst themselves. Bacon. On the part of Heaven, Now alienated, distance and distaste. Milton.

The act of distraining; the taking of a personal chattel out of the possession of a wrongdoer, by way of pledge for redress of an injury, or for the performance of a duty, as for nonpayment of rent or taxes, or for injury done by cattle, etc.

A writ commanding the sheriff to distrain a person by his goods or chattels, to compel a compliance with something required of him.

revelers to a flute accompaniment; hence, in general, a poem written in a wild irregular strain. Bentley.

large-bodied domestic fowls, having five toes, or the hind toe double. There are several strains, as the white, gray, and silver-gray. They are highly esteemed for the table.

to saturate with water or other liquid; to immerse. Now dam the ditches and the floods restrain; Their moisture has already drenched the plain. Dryden.

To urge, impel, or hurry forward; to force; to constrain; to urge, press, or bring to a point or state; as, to drive person by necessity, by persuasion, by force of circumstances, by argument, and the like. " Enough to drive one mad." Tennyson. He, driven to dismount, threatened, if I did not do the like, to do as much…

n, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England. D. Webster.

A melancholy strain or tune in music; any tune. [Obs.] "Tune a deploring dump." "Play me some merry dump." Shak.

Imprisonment; restraint of the person; custody by a jailer; duress. Shak. "Durance vile." Burns. In durance, exile, Bedlam or the mint. Pope.