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iminished or impaired; to fail; to sink; to diminish; to lessen; as, the day declines; virtue declines; religion declines; business declines. That empire must decline Whose chief support and sinews are of coin. Waller. And presume to know . . . Who thrives, and who declines. Shak.

The act or process of boiling anything in a watery fluid to extract its virtues. In decoction . . . it either purgeth at the top or settleth at the bottom. Bacon.

Repeatedly compound; made up of complex constituents.

Capable of being resolved into constituent elements.

To separate the constituent parts of; to resolve into original elements; to set free from previously existing forms of chemical combination; to bring to dissolution; to rot or decay.

The act or process of resolving the constituent parts of a compound body or substance into its elementary parts; separation into constituent part; analysis; the decay or dissolution consequent on the removal or alteration of some of the ingredients of a compound; disintegration; as, the decomposition of wood, rocks, et…

To reduce to constituent parts; to decompose. It divides and decompounds objects into . . . parts. Hazlitt.

drocarbon radical, C10H21, never existing alone, but regarded as the characteristic constituent of a number of compounds of the paraffin series.

To render infamous; to bring into disrepute. My guilt thy growing virtues did defame; My blackness blotted thy unblemish'd name. Dryden.

Fault; offense; ill deed; wrong act; failure in virtue or wisdom. And pardon craved for his so rash default. Spenser. Regardless of our merit or default. Pope.

xpound or interpret; as, to define a word, a phrase, or a scientific term. They define virtue to be life ordered according to nature. Robynson (More's Utopia).

An exact enunciation of the constituents which make up the logical essence.

ement, and the like; a stage in progression; grade; gradation; as, degrees of vice and virtue; to advance by slow degrees; degree of comparison.

One sent by any constituency to act as its representative in a convention; as, a delegate to a convention for nominating officers, or for forming or altering a constitution. [U.S.] Court of delegates, formerly, the great court of appeal from the archbishops' courts and also from the court of admiralty. It is now abolis…

Endowed with delight. If virtue no delighted beauty lack. Shak.

The right or title in virtue of which anything may be claimed; as, to hold a demand against a person.

Having the constituent parts massed or crowded together; close; compact; thick; containing much matter in a small space; heavy; opaque; as, a dense crowd; a dense forest; a dense fog. All sorts of bodies, firm and fluid, dense and rare. Ray. To replace the cloudy barrier dense. Cowper.

se. [R.] The most conspicuous places in cities are usually deputed for the erection of statues. Barrow.

One appointed as the substitue of another, and empowered to act for him, in his name or his behalf; a substitute in office; a lieutenant; a representative; a delegate; a vicegerent; as, the deputy of a prince, of a sheriff, of a township, etc. There was then [in the days of Jehoshaphat] no king in Edom; a deputy was ki…

Progress downward, as in station, virtue, as in station, virtue, and the like, from a higher to a lower state, from a higher to a lower state, from the more to the less important, from the better to the worse, etc.