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his character; loving obedience to the will of God, and earnest devotion to his service. Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. Rambler.

The quality of being impious; want of piety; irreverence toward the Supreme Being; ungodliness; wickedness.

to hate in the highest degree, as if with religious dread; loathe; as, to abominate all impiety.

Fig.: That which gives, or helps to maintain, uprightness, steadiness, and security. It [piety] is the right ballast of prosperity. Barrow. Ballast engine, a steam engine used in excavating and for digging and raising stones and gravel for ballast. -- Ship in ballast, a ship carring only ballast.

A state of extreme impiety or enmity to God. Thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. Acts viii. 23.

Dissolution; degeneration; decay. [R.] Sad catalysis and declension of piety. Evelyn.

untenance. Ps. xxi. 6. This is the magistrate's peculiar province, to give countenance to piety and virtue, and to rebuke vice. Atterbury.

r or judge; a caviler; a carper. When an author has many beauties consistent with virtue, piety, and truth, let not little critics exalt themselves, and shower down their ill nature. I. Watts. You know who the critics are the men who have failed in literature and art. Beaconsfield.

tivate the wild, licentious savage. Addison. The mind of man hath need to be prepared for piety and virtue; it must be cultivated to the end. Tillotson.

quality of deserving damnation; execrableness. The damnableness of this most execrable impiety. Prynne.

ties; to deteriorate. When wit transgresseth decency, it degenerates into insolence and impiety. Tillotson.

often with a reflexive pronoun; as, to devote one's self to science, to one's friends, to piety, etc.

Expressing devotion or piety; as, eyes devout; sighs devout; a devout posture. Milton.

s or want of reputation or good name; dishonor; disrepute; disesteem. "A disreputation of piety." Jer. Taylor.

ing forth; effusion; outflow; as, the efflux of matter from an ulcer; the efflux of men's piety. It is then that the devout affections . . . are incessantly in efflux. I. Taylor.

tem, like the body; as, the embodiment of courage, or of courtesy; the embodiment of true piety.

Exemplary. [Obs.] The exemplar piety of the father of a family. Jer. Taylor.

ul observance of, or conformity to, the laws of God; the state or quality of being godly; piety. Godliness is profitable unto all things. 1 Tim. iv. 8.

Being with child; heavy with young; pregnant; fruitful; as, a gravid uterus; gravid piety. " His gravid associate." Sir T. Herbert.

ary; constant; as, the habiual practice of sin. It is the distinguishing mark of habitual piety to be grateful for the most common and ordinary blessings. Buckminster.