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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.

Separated or broken up; -- said of the crest of birds when the feathers are divergent.

ion produced by the one is corrected by other, and light emerges from the compound lens undecomposed. -- Achromatic prism. See Prism. -- Achromatic telescope, or microscope, one in which the chromatic aberration is corrected, usually by means of a compound or achromatic object glass, and which gives images free from…

A product of gastric and pancreatic digestion, differing from hemipeptone in not being decomposed by the continued action of pancreatic juice.

To begin to affect; to begin to act upon, injuriously or destructively; to begin to decompose or waste. On the fourth of March he was attacked by fever. Macaulay. Hydrofluoric acid . . . attacks the glass. B. Stewart.

f Ireland. -- Bog earth (Min.), a soil composed for the most part of silex and partially decomposed vegetable fiber. P. Cyc. -- Bog moss. (Bot.) Same as Sphagnum. -- Bog myrtle (Bot.), the sweet gale. -- Bog ore. (Min.) (a) An ore of iron found in boggy or swampy land; a variety of brown iron ore, or limonite. (b)…

ion of various substances (as muck, mold, lime, and stable manure) thoroughly mingled and decomposed, as in a compost heap. And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker. Shak.

A contemptible or vicious critic. The rancorous and reptile crew of poeticules, who decompose into criticasters. Swinburne.

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

To decompose. [R.] Fuller.

To break or separate into parts; to deflect, or decompose by deflection, a

To decompose into integrant parts; as, chalk rapidly disintegrates.

To waste away; to be dissipated; to be decomposed or broken up.

Capable of being electrolyzed, or decomposed by electricity.

To decompose by the direct action of electricity. Faraday.

ble constituents of any kind of matter. Specifically: (Chem.) A substance which cannot be decomposed into different kinds of matter by any means at present employed; as, the elements of water are oxygen and hydrogen.

Decomposed rock, usually reddish or ferruginous (owing to oxidized pyrites), forming the upper part of a metallic vein.

Decomposed granite.

A decomposed granite, forming a mass of gravel, as in tin lodes in Cornwall.

herbivorous animals, and in small quantity in human urine. By the action of acids, it is decomposed into benzoic acid and glycocoll.