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direct by rule or restriction; to subject to governing principles or laws. The laws which regulate the successions of the seasons. Macaulay. The herdsmen near the frontier adjudicated their own disputes, and regulated their own police. Bancroft.

To make irregular; to disorder. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

To regulate wrongly or imperfectly; to fail to regulate.

Regulated by one's self or by itself.

A mark or character used in writing, and serving to regulate the pronunciation; esp.: (a) a mark to indicate the nature and place of the spoken accent; (b) a mark to indicate the quality of sound of the vowel marked; as, the French accents.

did not act. Cowper. To act as or for, to do the work of; to serve as. -- To act on, to regulate one's conduct according to. -- To act up to, to equal in action; to fulfill in practice; as, he has acted up to his engagement or his advantages.

To put in order; to regulate, or reduce to system. Adjusting the orthography. Johnson.

a formation in a straight line; also, the line of adjustment; esp., an imaginary line to regulate the formation of troops or of a squadron.

knowledge of the laws of the heavenly orbs, or the principles by which their motions are regulated, with their various phenomena. An undevout astronomer is mad. Young.

To reduce, modify, or moderate, by mixture; to temper; to regulate, as temperature. If sweet with bitter . . . were not attempered still. Trench.

A wheel which regulates the beats or pulses of a watch or chronometer, answering to the pendulum of a clock; -- often called simply a balance.

is varies for different articles and also in different places for the same article, being regulated by custom or by law. A barrel of wine is 31

A wall built across the ditch of a fortification, with a sluice gate to regulate the height of water in the ditch on both sides of the wall.

onsisting of a rule or frame, and a plumb line, by which the batter or slope of a wall is regulated in building.

the wing, to flutter; to move with fluttering agitation. -- To beat time, to measure or regulate time in music by the motion of the hand or foot. -- To beat up, to attack suddenly; to alarm or disturb; as, to beat up an enemy's quarters.

To regulate by musical measure. These parting numbers, cadenced by my grief. Philips.

current of air induced by the suction of the engine piston, the supply of gasoline being regulated by a float which actuates a needle valve controlling the outlet of the feed pipe. Alcohol and other volatile inflammable liquids may be used instead of gasoline.

Behavior regulated by strict etiquette; a formal method of performing acts of civility; forms of civility prescribed by custom or authority. Ceremony was but devised at first To set a gloss on . . . hollow welcomes . . . But where there is true friendship there needs none. Shak. Al ceremonies are in themselves very sil…

A lively dance (called also galliard), the steps of which were regulated by the number five. [Obs.] Nares. Shak.

An apparatus consisting of a slowly revolving disk, usually regulated by clockwork, by means of wich the action of external agents, as light and gravity, on growing plants may be regulated or eliminated.