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tion or action; execution; achievement; accomplishment; representation by action; as, the performance of an undertaking of a duty. Promises are not binding where the performance is impossible. Paley.

Neglect or failure to perform.

The act of accomplishing; entire performance; completion; fulfillment; as, the accomplishment of an enterprise, of a prophecy, etc.

The act of achieving or performing; an obtaining by exertion; successful performance; accomplishment; as, the achievement of his object.

ne or doing; the exercise of power, or the effect, of which power exerted is the cause; a performance; a deed. That best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Wordsworth. Hence, in specific uses:

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.

Involving or comprising action; active. [Obs.] Her walking and other actual performances. Shak. Let your holy and pious intention be actual; that is . . . by a special prayer or action, . . . given to God. Jer. Taylor.

in time or place; the act of following and being followed by turns; alternate succession, performance, or occurrence; as, the alternation of day and night, cold and heat, summer and winter, hope and fear.

hat system of surgical practice which insists upon a systematic use of antiseptics in the performance of operations and the dressing of wounds.

Of or performance to Argos, the capital of Argolis in Greece. -- n.

A system of rules serving to facilitate the performance of certain actions; a system of principles and rules for attaining a desired end; method of doing well some special work; -- often contradistinguished from science or speculative principles; as, the art of building or engraving; the art of war; the art of navigati…

An action to recover damages for a breach or nonperformance of a contract or promise, express or implied, oral or in writing not under seal. Common or indebitatus assumpsit is brought for the most part on an implied promise. Special assumpsit is founded on an express promise or undertaking. Wharton.…

Clumsy in performance or manners; unhandy; not dexterous; awkward. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]

ground of grinding and waiting before Miss Torry could produce this highly finished . . . performance. Mrs. Alexander. A husband somewhere in the background. Thackeray.

r various purposes; as, the baton of a field marshal; the baton of a conductor in musical performances. He held the baton of command. Prescott.

A theatrical performance, a concert, or the like, the proceeds of which do not go to the lessee of the theater or to the company, but to some individual actor, or to some charitable use.

Work done in a bungling manner; a clumsy performance; a piece of work, or a place in work, marred in the doing, or not properly finished; a bungle. To leave no rubs nor botches in the work. Shak.

A clumsy or awkward performance; a botch; a gross blunder. Those errors and bungles which are committed. Cudworth.

ndi] (Law), the duty of proving a particular position in a court of law, a failure in the performance of which duty calls for judgment against the party on whom the duty is imposed.

ng; as, a cool calculating disposition. Calculating machine, a machine for the mechanical performance of mathematical operations, for the most part invented by Charles Babbage and G. and E. Scheutz. It computes logarithmic and other mathematical tables of a high degree of intricacy, imprinting the results on a leaden p…