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Lying; resting; reclining; recumbent; superimposed; superincumbent. Two incumbent figures, gracefully leaning upon it. Sir H. Wotton. To move the incumbent load they try. Addison.

In an incumbent manner; so as to be incumbent.

Lying or resting on something else.

or the state of a benefice becoming void by the death, deprivation, or resignation of the incumbent. Wolsey, . . . on every avoidance of St. Peter's chair, was sitting down therein, when suddenly some one or other clapped in before him. Fuller.

A bracket supporting a superincumbent object, or receiving the spring of an arch. Corbels were employed largely in Gothic architecture.

A slow rising of the floor of a gallery, occasioned by the pressure of incumbent strata upon the pillars or sides; a gradual movement of mining ground.

To overwhelm by pressure or weight; to beat or force down, as by an incumbent weight. To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. Dryden. Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again. Bryant.

r of a curate; a curacy; as, to resign a cure; to obtain a cure. The appropriator was the incumbent parson, and had the cure of the souls of the parishioners. Spelman.

Ecclesiastical waste; impairing of church property by an incumbent, through neglect or by intention. The business of dilapidations came on between our bishop and the Archibishop of York. Strype.

To possess and perform the duties of; to officiate in, as an incumbent; to occupy; to hold; as, a king fills a throne; the president fills the office of chief magistrate; the speaker of the House fills the chair.

The state of being incumbent; a lying or resting on something.

See Incumbent.

A horizontal member spanning an opening, and carrying the superincumbent weight by means of its strength in resisting crosswise fracture.

Having the radicle of the embryo lying against the back of one of the cotyledons; incumbent.

represents a parish in its ecclesiastical and corporate capacities; hence, the rector or incumbent of a parochial church, who has full possession of all the rights thereof, with the cure of souls.

by a parish or ecclesiastical society, and appropriated to the maintenance or use of the incumbent or settled pastor.

One of the incumbents of a benefice which has two or more rectors or vicars.

paid formerly to the bishop or archdeacon, now to the ecclesiastical commissioners, by an incumbent, as a commutation for entertainment at the time of visitation; -- called also proxy. Procuration money (Law), money paid for procuring a loan. Blackstone.

ain; to maintain; as, to prop a declining state. Shak. Till the bright mountains prop the incumbent sky. Pope. For being not propp'd by ancestry. Shak. I prop myself upon those few supports that are left me. Pope.

Of or pertaining to a king; royal. Regius professor, an incumbent of a professorship founded by royal bounty, as in an English university.