A fowler had taken a partridge, who offered to decoy her companions into the snare. L'Estrange. Decoy'd by the fantastic blaze, Thomson. Now lost, and now renew'd, he sinks, absorpt Rider and horse. DECO'Y. n. s. [from the verb.] Allurement to mischief; temptation. The devil could never have had such numbers, had he not used some as decoys to ensnare others. Government of the Tongue. These exuberant productions of the earth became a continuat decoy and snare: they only excited and fomented lusts. Woodward. An old dramdrinker is the devil's decoy. Berkley. DECO'YDUCK. n. s. A duck that lures Nor cherish'd they relations poor, That might decrease their present store. Prior. Heat increases the fluidity of tenacious liquids, as of oil, balsam, and honey; and thereby decreases their resistance. Newton. DECREASE n. s. [from the verb.] 1. The state of growing less; decay. By weak'ning toil and hoary age o'ercome, See thy decrease, and hasten to thy tomb. Prier. 2. The wain; the time when the visible face of the moon grows less. See in what time the seeds, set in the increase of the moon, come to a certain height, and how they differ from those that are set in the decrease of the moon. Bacon. To DECREE. v. n. [decretum, Latin.] To make an edict; to appoint by edict ; to establish by law; to determine; to resolve. They shall see the end of the wise, and shall not understand what God in his counsel hath dee greed of him. Wisdom. Father eternal! thine is to decree; Mine, both in heav'n and earth, to do thy will. Milton. Had heav'n decreed that I should life enjoy, Heav'n had decreed to save unhappy Troy, Dryd. To DECRE E. v. a. To doom or assign by a decree. Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be Job. established. The king their father, On just and weighty reasons, has decreed His sceptre to the younger. DECREE. n. J. [decretum, Latin.] . An edict; a law. Rove If you deny me, fe upon your law! There is no force in the decrees of Venice. Sbak. There went a decree from Cæsar Augustas, Lake. that all the world should be taxed. Are we condemn'd by fate's unjust decre No more our houses and our homes to see? Dryden. The Supreme Being is sovereignly good; be rewards the just, and punishes the unjust and the folly of man, and not the decree of heaven, is the cause of human calamity. Brom 2. An established rule. When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder. 3. A determination of a suit, or litigated cause. 4. [In canon law.] An ordinance, which is enacted by the pope himself, by and with the advice of his cardinals in council assembled, without being con sulted by any one thereon. Ayliffe's Parerg. DECREMENT. n. s. [decrementum, Latin.] Decrease; the state of growing less; the quantity lost by decreasing. Upon the tropick, and first descension from our solstice, we are scarce sensible of declination: but declining farther, our decrement accelerates; we set apace, and in our last days precipitate in to our graves. Brown's Fulgar Errori. Rocks, mountains, and the other elevations of the earth, suffer a continual decrement, and gros lower and lower. Woduct DECRE'PIT. adj. [decrepitus, Lat.] Wasted and worn out with age; in the last stage of decay. Decrepit miser! base, ignoble wretch! Shaky Of men's lives, in this decrepit age of the wor many exceed fourscore, and some an hundred years. Rekeyi This pope is decrepit, and the bell goeth fat him; take order that there be chosen a pope fresh years. Ba Decrepit superstitions, and such as had ter nativity in times beyond all history, are fi se the observation of many heads. Broch And from the north to call Decrepit Winter. The charge of witchcraft inspires people with a malevolence towards those poor decrepit of our species, in whom human nature is defaced by infirmity and dotage. Al TO DECRE PITATE. v. a. [decreps, Lát | To calcine salt till it has ceased to a kle in the fire. So will it come to pass in a pot of salt, althed decrepitated. Brown's Valger Error DECKEPITA'TION... [fromdecrepit The crackling noise which salt makes when put over the fire in a crucible. Quier DECREPITNESS.) n. s. {from decre DECREPITUDE.) The last stage of is cay; the last effects of old age. Mother earth, in this her barrenness and d crepitness of age, can procreate such swarme curious engines. Bester DECRESCENT. adj. [from decrescens, La. Growing less; being in a state of crease. DECRETAL. adj. [decretum, Latin.] Appertaining to a decree; containing a de cree. A decretal epistle is that which the pope decrees either by himself, or else by the advice of his cardinals; and this must be on his being con- The second room, whose walls Traditions and decretals were made of equal DECRETIST. N. s. [from decree.] One that studies or professes the knowledge of the decretal. The decretists had their rise and beginning under the reign of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Ayliffe's Parergon. DECRETORY. adj. [from decree.] 1. Judicial; definitive. There are lenitives that friendship will apply, before it will be brought to the decretory rigours of a condemning sentence. South's Sermons. 2. Critical; in which there is some definitive event. The motions of the moon, supposed to be measured by sevens, and the critical or decretory days, depend on that number. Brown. DECRI'AL. n. s. [from decry.] Clamor, ous censure; hasty or noisy condemna. tion; concurrence in censuring any thing. To DECRY'. v. a. [decrier, French.] To censure; to blame clamorously; to clamour against. Malice in criticks reigns so high, That for small errours they whole plays decry. Dryden. Those measures which are extolled by one half of the kingdom, are naturally decried by the other. Addison. They applied themselves to lessen their authority, decried them as hard and unnecessary reRogers. Quacks and impostors are still cautioning us to beware of counterfeits, and decry others cheats only to make more way for their own. Swift, DECUMBENCE. Įn. s. [decumbo, Latin.] DECUMBENCY.) The act of lying down; the posture of lying down. straints. This must come to pass, if we hold opinion they lie not down, and enjoy no decumbence at all; for station is properly no rest, but one kind of motion. Brown's Vulgar Errours. Not considering the ancient manner of decumbency, he imputed this gesture of the beloved disciple unto rusticity, or an act of incivility. Brown's Vulgar Errours. DECU'MBITURE. n. s. [from decumbo, Latin.] I. The time at which a man takes to his bed in a disease. . In astrology.] A scheme of the heavens erected for that time, by which the prognosticks of recovery or death are discovered, If but a mile she travel out of town, The planetary hour must first be known, And lucky moment: if her eye but akes, Or itches, its decumbiture she takes. Dryden DE CUPLE. adj. [decuplus, Latin.] Tenfold; the same number ten times repeated. Man's length, that is, a perpendicular from the vertex unto the sole of the foot, is decuple unto his profundity, that is, a direct line between the breast and the spine. Brown. Supposing there be a thousand sorts of insects in this island; if the same proportion holds between the insects of England and of the world, as between plants domestick and exotick, that is, near a decuple, the species of insects will amount DECU'RION. n. s. [decurio, Lat.] A comto tep thousand. Ray. mander over ten; an officer subordinate to the centurion. He instituted decurions through both these colonies; that is, one over every ten families. Temple. DECURSION. n. s. [decursus, Lat.] The act of running down. What is decayed by that decursion of waters, is supplied by the terrene fæces which water DECURTA'TION. n. s. [decurtatio, Lat.] brings. Hale. The act of cutting short, or shortening. To DECU'SSATE. v. a. [decusso, Latin.] This it performs by the action of a notable muscle on each side, having the form of the letter X; made up of many fibres, decussating one another longways. Ray. DECUSSA'TION. n. s. [from decussate.] The act of crossing; state of being crossed at unequal angles. Though there be decussation of the rays in the pupil of the eye, and so the image of the object in the retina, or bottom of the eye, be inverted; yet doth not the object appear inverted, but in its right or natural posture. Ray. To DEDECORATE. v. a. [dedecoro, Lat.] To disgrace; to bring a reproach Dict. DEDECORATION. n. s. [from dedecorate.] The act of disgracing; disgrace. Dict. DEDE'COROUS. adj. [dedecus, Lat.] DisDEDENTITION. n. s. [de and dentitio, graceful; reproachful; shameful. Dict. Lat.] Loss or shedding of the teeth: upon. Solon divided life into ten septenaries, because in every one thereof a man received some sensible mutation: in the first is detentition, or falling of teeth. Brown's Vulgar Errours. To DE'DICATE. v. a. [dedico, Lat.] 1. To devote to some divine power; to consecrate and set apart to sacred uses. A pleasant grove Was shot up high, full of the stately tree That dedicated is to Olympick Jove, And to his son Alcides. Spenser. The princes offered for dedicating the altar, in the day that it was anointed. Numbers. Warn'd by the seer, to her offended name We rais'd, and dedicate, this wond'rous frame. Dryden. 2. To appropriate solemnly to any person or purpose. There cannot be That vulture in you, to devour so many Shakspeare. He went to learn the profession of a soldier, to which he had dedicated himself. Clarendon. Bid her instant wed, And quiet dedicate her remnant life To the just duties of an humble wife. 3. To inscribe to a patron. Prior. Peacham. He compiled ten elegant books, and dedicated them to the lord Burghley. DE'DICATE. adj. [from the verb.] Consecrate; devote; dedicated; appropriate. Pray'rs from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose names are dedicate To nothing temporal. Shakspeare. This tenth part, or tithe, being thus assigned unto him, leaveth now to be of the nature of the other nine parts, which are given us for our worldly necessities, and becometh as a thing dedicate and appropriate unto God. Spelman. DEDICATION. n. s. [dedicatio, Latin.] 1. The act of dedicating to any being or purpose; consecration; solemn appropriation. It cannot be laid to many men's charge, that hey have been so curious as to trouble bishops with placing the first stone in the churches; or so scrupulous as, after the erection of them, to make any great ado for their dedication. Hooker. Among publick solemnities, there is none so glorious, as that under the reign of king Solomon, at the dedication of the temple. Addison. 2. An address to a patron. Proud as Apollo on his forked hill, Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill; Fed by soft dedication all day long, Horace and he went hand in hand in song. Pepe. DEDICATOR. n.s. [from dedicate.] One who inscribes his work to a patron with compliment and servility. Leave dang'rous truths to unsuccessful satires, And flattery to fulsome dedicators. Pope. DE'DICATORY. adj. [from dedicate.] Composing a dedication; complimental; adulatory. Thus I should begin my epistle, if it were a dedicatory one; but it is a friendly letter. Pope. DEDITION. 7.s. [deditio, Lat.] The act of yielding up any thing; surrendry. It was not a complete conquest, but rather a dedition upon terms and capitulations agreed between the conqueror and the conquered. Hale. To DEDUCE. v. a. [deduco, Latin.] 1. To draw in a regular connected series, from one time or one event to another. I will deduce him from his cradle, through the deep and lubric waves of state and court, till he was swallowed in the gulph of fatality. Wotton Buck. O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhimes From the dire nation in its early times? Pope. 2. To form a regular chain of consequential propositions. Reason is nothing but the faculty of deducing unknown truths from principles already known. Locke. 3. To lay down in regular order, so as that the following shall naturally rise from the foregoing. Lend me your song, ye nightingales! Oh pour The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse! while I deduce, From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, Them. The symphony of spring. DEDU/CEMENT. H.S. [from deduce.] The thing deduced; the collection of reason; consequential proposition. Praise and prayer are his due worship, and the rest of those deducements which I am confident are the remote effects of revelation. Dryden DEDUCIBLE. adj. [from deduce.] Col lectible by reason; consequential; & coverable from principles laid down. The condition, although deducible from many grounds, yet shall we evidence it but from fes. Brown's Vulgar Error The general character of the new earth s paradisaical; and the particular character, the it hath no sea: and both are apparently dedant from its formation. So far, therefore, as conscience reports an thing agreeable to or deducible from these, is to be hearkened to. All properties of a triangle depend on, and are deducible from, the complex idea of three lines, including a space. DEDUCIVE. adj. [from deduce.] PerforsDict ing the act of deduction. To DEDUCT. v. a. [deduro, Latin.] 1. To substract; to take away; to cut off; to defalcate. We deduct from the computation of our years that part of our time which is spent in incogtancy of infancy. Narra 2. To separate; to dispart; to divide. Now not in use. Having yet in his deducted spright, Some sparks remaining of that heavenly fire. Spacn DEDUCTION. n. s. [deductio, Lat.] 1. Consequential collection; consequence: proposition drawn from principles premised. Out of scripture such duties may be deduct by some kind of consequence; as by long cr cuit of deduction it may be that even all tra out of any truth, may be concluded. Har Set before you the moral law of God, vi such deductions from it as our Savior bah drawn, or our own reason, well informed, make. Dufte That by diversity of motions we should sp out things not resembled by them, we must r tribute to some secret deduction; but what the deduction should be, or by what mediums t knowledge is advanced, is as dark as ignorare. Gigers You have laid the experiments together in a way, and made such deductions from them, I have not hitherto met with. All cross and distasteful humours are either expresly, or by clear consequence and déc tion, forbidden in the New Testament. A reflection so obvious, that natural instit seems to have suggested it even to these we never much attended to deductions of reason. སྙ All knowledge of causes is deductive; for we know none by simple intuition, but through the mediation of their effects. Glanville. DEDUCTIVELY. adv. [from deductive.] Consequentially; by regular deduction; by a regular train of ratiocination. There is scarce a popular errour passant in our days, which is not either directly expressed, or deductively contained, in this work. Brown. DEED .n. s. [dæd, Saxon; daed, Dutch.] 1. Action, whether good or bad; thing done. From lowest place when virtuous things pro- The place is dignified by th' doer's deed. Shakspeare. The monster nought replied; for words were vain, And deeds could only deeds unjust maintain. Dryden. The same had not consented to the counsel and deed. Luke. We are not secluded from the expectation of Smalridge. reward for our charitable deeds. 2. Exploit; performance. I, on the other side, Us'd no ambition to commend my deeds; Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn. 3. Power of action; agency. Dryden. Nor knew I not To be with will and deed created free. Milton. 4. Act declaratory of an opinion. They desire, with strange absurdity, that to the same senate it should belong to give full judg ment in matter of excommunication, and to absolve whom it pleased them, clean contrary to their own former deeds and oaths. Hooker. 5. Written evidence of any legal act. The solicitor gave an evidence for a deed, which was impeached to be fraudulent. Bacon. He builds his house upon the sand, and writes the deeds by which he holds his estate upon the face of a river. South. 6. Fact; reality; the contrary to fiction: whence the word indeed. O that, as oft I have at Athens seen Instant, he cried, your female discord end, Ye deedless boasters! and the song attend. Pope. To DEEM. v. n. part. dempt, or deemed. [domgan, Gothick; doemen, Dutch; deman, Saxon.] 1. To judge; to conclude upon consideration; to think; to opine; to determine. Here eke that famous golden apple grew, He who, to be deem'd Do me not to dy, Ne deem thy force by fortune's doom unjust, That hath, maugre her spite, thus low me laid in dust. Spenser. But they that skill not of so heavenly matter, All that they know not, envy, or admire; Rather than envy, let them wonder at her, But not to deem of her desert aspire. Spenser. DEEM. n. s. [from the verb.] Judgment; surmise; opinion. Not now in use. Hear me, my love; be thou but true of heart. -I true! How now? what wicked deem is this? Shakspeare. DEE'MSTER. n.s. [from deem.] A judge: a word yet in use in Jersey and the Isle of Man. DEEP. adj. [deep, Saxon.] The gaping gulph low to the centre lies, 2. Low in situation; not high. Mr. Halley, in diving deep into the sea in a diving vessel, found, in a clear sun-shine day, that when he was sunk many fathoms deep into the water, the upper part of his hand, on which the sun shone directly, appeared of a red colour. Newton. 4. Entering far; piercing a great way. For, even in that season of the year, the ways in that vale were very deep. Clarendon Thou hast not strength such labours to sustain: Drink hellebore, my boy! drink deep, and scour thy brain. Dryden. 5. Far from the outer part. So the false spider, when her nets are spread, Deep ambush'd in her silent den does lie. Dryd. 6. Not superficial; not obvious. If the matter be knotty, and the sense lies deep, the mind must stop and buckle to it, and stick upon it with labour and thought, and close contemplation. Locke. 7. Sagacious; penetrating; having the power to enter far into a subject. 8. Who hath not heard it spoken I do not discover the helps which this great man of deep thought mentions. Locke. Full of contrivance; politick; insidi ous. 9. Grave; solemn. O God! if my deep pray'rs cannot appease thee, But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds, Yet execute thy wrath on me alone. Shaksp. Nor awful Phoebus was on Pindus heard With deeper silence, or with more regard. Dryd. 10. Dark-coloured. 1 With deeper brown the grove was overspread. Dryden. 11. Having a great degree of stilness, or gloom, or sadness. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. Genesis. 12. Depressed; sunk; metaphorically, low. Their deep poverty abounded into the riches of their liberality. 2 Corinthians. 13. Bass; grave in sound. The sounds made by buckets in a well are deeper and fuller than if the like percussion were made in the open air. Bacon. DEEP. n. s. [from the adjective.} 1. The sea; the main; the abyss of waters; the ocean. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, who sheweth his wonders in the deep. Bacon. What earth in her dark bowels could not keep From greedy man, lies safer in the deep. Waller. Whoe'er thou art, whom fortune brings to keep These rites of Neptune, monarch of the deep. 2. The most solemn or still part. Pope. There want not many that do fear, In deep of night, to walk by this Herne's oak. Shakspeare. The deep of night is crept upon our talk. Shakspeare. Virgin face divine Attracts the hapless youth through storms and train. Hills, dales, and forests, far behind remain, While the warm scent draws on the deep-mouth'd Gey. DEEP-MUSING. adj. [deep and mur.] Contemplative; lost in thought. But he deep-musing o'er the mountains stray'd, Through mazy thickets of the woodland shade. Pept. DEE'PLY. adv. [from deep.] 1. To a great depth; far below the surface. Fear is a passion that is most deeply rooted in our natures, and flows immediately from the principle of self-preservation. Tillotson Those impressions were made when the braia was more susceptive of them: they have been deeply engraven at the proper season, and therefore they remain. Wetti. 2. With great study or sagacity; not su perficially; not carelesly; profoundly. 3. Sorrowfully; solemnly; with a great degree of seriousness or sadness. He sighed deeply in his spirit. Mark. Klockens so deeply hath sworn ne'er more to Upon the deck our careful general stood, And deeply mus'd on the succeeding day. Dryd 4. With a tendency to darkness of colour. Having taken of the deeply red juice of buckthorn berries, I let it drop upon white paper. Begie 5. In a high degree. To keep his promise with him, he had deeply offended both his nobles and people. Baren DEE'PNESS. n. s. [from deep.] Entrance far below the surface; profundity; depth. Cazzianer set forward with great toil, by reason of the deepness of the way, and heaviness of the great ordnance. Knolies. Some fell upon stony places; and they withered, because they had no deepness of earth. Matthew. DEER. n. s. [deon, Saxon; thier, Teutonick; np, Greek.] That class of animals which is hunted for venison, containing many subordinate species; as the stag or red deer, the buck or fallow deer, the roebuck, and others. To You have beaten my men, killed my deer, and Shakspeare broke open my lodge. DEFA'CE. v. a. [defaire, French.] The pale that held my lovely deer. To destroy; to rase; to ruin; to disfigure. Give me leave to speak as earnestly in truly commending it, as you have done in untruly and unkindly defacing and slandering it. WLgyt. Fatal this marriage, Defacing monuments of conquer'd France Undoing all. Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond. Shakspeare Shakspeare. Whose statues, freezes, columns, broken lie, And, though defac'd, the wonder of the eye. Dryden. One nobler wretch can only rise; "T is he whose fury shall deface The stoick's image in this piece. DEFA'CEMENT. 7. S. [from deface.] Violation; injury; rasure; abolition; de struction. But what is this image, and how is it defaced? |