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In degree. [Obs.] Human reason doth not only gradually, but specifically, differ from the fantastic reason of brutes. Grew.

To consume gradually; to waste away. [Obs.] Boyle.

Gradually accelerating the movement.

An accession of land gradually washed to the shore or bank by the flowing of water. See Accretion.

Altering; gradually changing. Bacon.

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

s used to render glass, iron, etc., less brittle, performed by allowing them to cool very gradually from a high heat.

To slide back; to fall away; esp. to abandon gradually the faith and practice of a religion that has been professed.

To put round the bitts; as, to bitt the cable, in order to fasten it or to slacken it gradually, which is called veering away. Totten.

(Mus.) Gradually diminishing in rapidity and loudness.

A kind of joint by which an overlap joint is changed to a flush joint, by means of a gradually deepening rabbet, as at the ends of clinker-built boats.

, or bound by a common tie; a class or division of society; a coterie; a set. As his name gradually became known, the circle of his acquaintance widened. Macaulay.

Club-shaped; having the form of a club; growing gradually thicker toward the top.

Enlarged gradually at the end, as the antennæ of certain insects.

Having the form of, or resembling, a geometrical cone; round and tapering to a point, or gradually lessening in circumference; as, a conic or conical figure; a conical vessel.

Wasting away gradually. Darwin. - Con*ta*bes"cence, n.

To recover health and strength gradually, after sickness or weakness; as, a patient begins to convalesce.

To eat away by degrees; to wear away or diminish by gradually separating or destroying small particles of, as by action of a strong acid or a caustic alkali. Aqua fortis corroding copper . . . is wont to reduce it to a green- blue solution. Boyle.

Eating away; having the power of gradually wearing, changing, or destroying the texture or substance of a body; as, the corrosive action of an acid. "Corrosive liquors." Grew. "Corrosive famine."Thomson.

With a constantly increasing volume of voice; with gradually increasing strength and fullness of tone; -- a direction for the performance of music, indicated by the mark, or by writing the word on the score.