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Causing destruction; tending to bring about ruin, death, or devastation; ruinous; fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to; as, intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth. Time's destructive power. Wordsworth. Destructive distill…

n eagerly by the senses. Longing they look, and gaping at the sight, Devour her o'er with vast delight. Dryden.

A vase or drinking cup having two handles or ears.

Explosion. The vast displosion dissipates the clouds. Young.

To destroy by wasteful extravagance or lavish use; to squander. The vast wealth . . . was in three years dissipated. Bp. Burnet.

In different directions; to different points. On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Pope.

A piece of canvas fastened by lacing to the bonnet of a sail, to give it a greater depth, or more drop.

in the water to retard a ship's progress, or to keep her head up to the wind; esp., a canvas bag with a hooped mouth, so used. See Drag sail (below).

rotestants under Louis XIV., by an armed force, usually of dragoons; hence, a rapid and devastating incursion; dragoonade. He learnt it as he watched the dragonnades, the tortures, the massacres of the Netherlands. C. Kingsley.

an, believed to be the original people who occupied the land before the Hindoo or Aryan invasion.

guages of Southern India, which seem to have been the idioms of the natives, before the invasion of tribes speaking Sanskrit. Of these languages, the Tamil is the most important.

A military vassal mentioned in Domesday Book. [Obs.] Burrill.

ng ant; one of the visiting ants (Anomma arcens); -- so called because they move about in vast armies, and drive away or devour all insects and other small animals.

tic drug. Also Fig. The laboring masses . . . [were] drugged into brutish good humor by a vast system of public spectacles. C. Kingsley. Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it. Tennyson.

A linen (or sometimes cotton) fabric, finer and lighter than canvas, -- used for the lighter sails of vessels, the sacking of beds, and sometimes for men's clothing.

A frame (commonly) of wood serving to hold a canvas upright, or nearly upright, for the painter's convenience or for exhibition. Easel picture, Easel piece, a painting of moderate size such as is made while resting on an easel, as distinguished from a painting on a wall or ceiling.

A livid or black and blue spot, produced by the extravasation or effusion of blood into the areolar tissue from a contusion.

The act of ejecting or casting out; discharge; expulsion; evacuation. "Vast ejection of ashes." Eustace. "The ejection of a word." Johnson.

Tending to elude or deceive; evasive; fraudulent; fallacious; deceitful; deceptive. -- E*lu"so*ri*ness, n.

t and subordinate portions; as, the Austrian empire. Empire carries with it the idea of a vast and complicated government. C. J. Smith.