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ss or enterprise; attainment of the object desired; good fortune; success; as, commercial prosperity; national prosperity. Now prosperity begins to mellow. Shak. Prosperities can only be enjoyed by them who fear not at all to lose the Jer. Taylor.

Want of prosperity. [Obs.]

adverse fates, adverse circumstances, things adverse. Happy were it for us all if we bore prosperity as well and wisely as we endure an adverse fortune. Southey. Adverse possession (Law), a possession of real property avowedly contrary to some claim of title in another person. Abbott.

Having omens or tokens of a favorable issue; giving promise of success, prosperity, or happiness; predicting good; as, an auspicious beginning. Auspicious union of order and freedom. Macaulay.

ps 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.

Whatever promotes prosperity and personal happiness, or adds value to property; advantage; profit. Men have no right to what is not for their benefit. Burke.

tion to do good; possessing or manifesting love to mankind, and a desire to promote their prosperity and happiness; disposed to give to good objects; kind; charitable. -- Be*nev"o*lent*ly, adv.

To make happy, blithesome, or joyous; to confer prosperity or happiness upon; to grant divine favor to. The quality of mercy is . . . twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Shak. It hath pleased thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee. 1 Chron. xvii. 27 (R.…

A means of happiness; that which promotes prosperity and welfare; a beneficent gift. Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed. Milton.

Charge, oversight, or management, implying responsibility for safety and prosperity. The care of all the churches. 2 Car. xi. 28 Him thy care must be to find. Milton. Perlexed with a thousand cares. Shak.

Gradual failure of health, strength, soundness, prosperity, or of any species of excellence or perfection; tendency toward dissolution or extinction; corruption; rottenness; decline; deterioration; as, the decay of the body; the decay of virtue; the decay of the Roman empire; a castle in decay. Perhaps my God, though h…

To put an end to the existence, prosperity, or beauty of; to kill. If him by force he can destroy, or, worse, By some false guile pervert. Milton.

Attended with disadvantage; unfavorable to success or prosperity; inconvenient; prejudicial; -- opposed to advantageous; as, the situation of an army is disadvantageous for attack or defense. Even in the disadvantageous position in which he had been placed, he gave clear indications of future excellence. Prescott. -- D…

Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover The several caskets to this noble prince. Shak. Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue. Bacon. We will discover ourselves unto them. 1 Sam. xiv. 8. Discover not a secret to another. Prov. xxv. 9.

Discomfort; uneasiness. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. Bacon.

his vocation in the most dreary part of that dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Macaulay.

, a drunk man). Be not drunk with wine, where in is excess. Eph. v. 18. Drunk with recent prosperity. Macaulay.

A lifting up by success; exaltation; inriation with pride of prosperity. "Felt the elation of triumph." Sir W. Scott.

-- usually followed by of; as, they did this in envy of Cæsar. Envy is a repining at the prosperity or good of another, or anger and displeasure at any good of another which we want, or any advantage another hath above us. Ray. No bliss Enjoyed by us excites his envy more. Milton. Envy, to which the ignoble mind's a s…

State of prosperity. [Obs.] They think it was never fair-world with them since. Milton.