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The act of executing or performing any duty, office, or calling; per formance. "In the function of his public calling." Swift.

To execute or perform a function; to transact one's regular or appointed business.

Pertaining to, or connected with, a function or duty; official.

To assign to some function or office. [R.]

In a functional manner; as regards normal or appropriate activity. The organ is said to be functionally disordered. Lawrence.

One charged with the performance of a function or office; as, a public functionary; secular functionaries.

Destitute of function, or of an appropriate organ. Darwin.

Death. [Obs.] After defunction of King Pharamond. Shak.

tc. He abdicates all right to be his own governor. Burke. The understanding abdicates its functions. Froude.

One of the functionaries who light and trim the tapers.

n; adjustment; -- followed by to. "The organization of the body with accommodation to its functions." Sir M. Hale.

To perform actions; to fulfill functions; to put forth energy; to move, as opposed to remaining at rest; to carry into effect a determination of the will. He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest. Pope.

Any one of the active processes going on in an organism; the performance of a function; as, the action of the heart, the muscles, or the gastric juice.

a board or body of municipal officers next in order to the mayor and having a legislative function. They may, in some cases, individually exercise some magisterial and administrative functions.

Pertaining to aliment or food, or to the function of nutrition; nutritious; alimental; as, alimentary substances. Alimentary canal, the entire channel, extending from the mouth to the anus, by which aliments are conveyed through the body, and the useless parts ejected.

The act or process of affording nutriment; the function of the alimentary canal.

g life, in opposition to dead; living; being in a state in which the organs perform their functions; as, an animal or a plant which is alive.

Gradually changing, or tending to change, a morbid state of the functions into one of health. Burton.

The state, office, or functions of an ambassador.

An angle upon which the value of some function depends; -- a term used more especially in connection with elliptic functions. Magnetic amplitude, the angular distance of a heavenly body, when on the horizon, from the magnetic east or west point as indicated by the compass. The difference between the magnetic and the tr…