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That which is selected; a collection of things chosen; as, a choice selection of books. Natural selection. (Biol.) See under Natural.

A miscellaneous collection of notes, remarks, or selections; a commonplace book; also, commentaries or notes. These parchments are supposed to have been St. Paul's adversaria. Bp. Bull.

Relating to analects; made up of selections; as, an analectic magazine.

Formerly, a hymn sung in alternate parts, in present usage, a selection from the Psalms, or other parts of the Scriptures or the liturgy, set to sacred music.

A service book containing a selection of pieces for the festival services.

One taken at random rather than by selection; anybody.

seek what satisfies the wants of its organism. These lacteals have mouths, and by animal selection or appetency the absorb such part of the fluid as is agreeable to their palate. E. Darwin.

omething highly esteemed; as: (a) The body. (Shak). (b) The tomb. (Milton). (c) A book of selections. [poetic] They found him dead . . . an empty casket. Shak.

A literary or a musical composition formed by selections from different authors disposed in a new order.

The thing or person chosen; that which is approved and selected in preference to others; selection. The common wealth is sick of their own choice. Shak.

To make a selection; to decide. They had only to choose between implicit obedience and open rebellion. Prescott.

A selection of passages, with notes, etc., to be used in acquiring a language; as, a Hebrew chrestomathy.

eing condensed. He [Goldsmith] was a great and perhaps an unequaled master of the arts of selection and condensation. Macaulay.

Abstracted; removed from close representation of nature by the deliberate selection of what is to be represented and what is to be rejected; as, a conventional flower; a conventional shell. Cf. Conventionalize, v. t.

The act of choosing; selection; choice. [Obs.] The first election and coöptation of a friend. Howell.

Inclined to make nice distinctions, or to exercise careful judgment and selection; exact; nicely judicious. Virgil was so critical in the rites of religion. that he would never have brought in such prayers as these, if they had not been agreeable to the Roman customs. Bp. Stillingfleet.

A selection of every tenth person by lot, as for punishment. Shak.

That which is chosen as the flower or choicest part; careful culling or selection. [R.] The laws of Normandy are, in a great measure, the defloration of the English laws. Sir M. Hale.

Selection and appointment for a purpose; allotment; direction.

The selection for a particular service of a person or a body of men; hence, the person or the body of men so selected. Detail drawing, a drawing of the full size, or on a large scale, of some part of a building, machine, etc. -- In detail, in subdivisions; part by part; item; circumstantially; with particularity.…