How did I hope to vex a thousand eyes! Oh glorious malice, dearer than the prize! Dr. T. Brown. Three yere in this wise his lif he ledde, Shakspeare. Twelfth Night. Let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us In our dear peril. Some dear cause Id. Timon. Will in concealment wrap me up a-while : The other banished son, with his dear sight At last, as chanced them by a forest side To pass, for succour from the scorching ray, They heard a rueful voice, that dearnly cried With piercing shrieks. Spenser. Of every tree that in the garden grows, The French have brought on themselves that dearth of plot, and narrowness of imagination, which may be observed in all their plays. Dryden. There have been terrible years dearths of corn, and every place is strewed with beggars; but dearths are common in better climates, and our evils here lie much deeper. Swift. DEATH, n. s. DEATH-LIKE, Sax. dead; Belg. dood; Teut. tod, todt, thot; from Gr. θανατος, says Minshen or the Heb. л, doth. The cessation or extinction of life; the state of the dead; the immediate cause or causer of death; the final perdition of wicked men. A death's man is a public executioner: death's door, a near approach to death. A deathwatch is an insect making a ticking noise, like a watch, and supposed to presage death. The other compounds seem to require no explanation. DEATH'-WATCH. For the sorrowe that is aftir God worchith penaunce into stidefast heelthe, but sorrow of the worlde worchith deeth. Wiclif. 2 Cor. vii. They cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. 2 Kings iv. 40. He is the mediator of the New Testament, that by They were adradde of him as of the deth. Chaucer. Prol. to Cant. Tales. wings all things wither, bath wasted that lively virtue Their drenched natures lie, as in a death. I had rather be married to a death's head, with a DEARTH, n. s. The third person, according bone in his mouth, than to either of these. to Mr. Tooke, of depan, to injure. Minsheu says from Belg. dier, dear, and tit, time: a dear time. Dyrtid, as used with the Goths,' says Mr. Thomson, a time of dearness.' phorically applied to the mind. It is meta He's dead; I'm only sorry Id. Id. Julius Cæsar. Sweet soul, take heed, take heed of perjury; Life, by this death abled, shall controll Donne. Divine Poems. There was a poor young woman, that had brought herself even to death's door with grief for her sick husband. L'Estrange. No blacks, nor soul-bells, nor deuth's-heads on our rings, nor funeral sermons, nor tombs, nor epitaphs, can fix our hearts enough upon our frail and miserable condition. Bishop Hall. Sermon 30. On seas, on earth, and all that in them dwell, A deathlike quiet and deep silence fell. Waller. Blood, death, and deathful deeds, are in that noise, consequent thereon, as respiration, sensation, Ruin, destruction at the utmost point. A deathlike sleep! Milton. Id.. A gentle wafting to immortal life! God hath only immortality, though angels and hu man souls be deathless. Boyle. &c. The signs of death are in many cases very uncertain. If we consult what Winslow or Bruchier have said on this subject, we shall be convinced, that between life and death the shade is so very undistinguishable, that all the powers of art can scarcely determine where the one ends and the other begins. The color of the visage,, the warmth of the body, and the suppleness of the joints, are but uncertain signs of life still subsisting; while, on the contrary, the paleness of the complexion, the coldness of the body, the stiffness of the extremities, the cessation of all motion, and the total insensibility of the parts, are but uncertain marks of death begun. In the same manner also, with regard to the pulse and breathing; these motions are often so small, that it is impossible to perceive them. This ought to be a caution against hasty burials, especially in cases of sudden death, drowning, &c. See DROWNING. DEATH, in law. The law makes a distinction between natural and civil death. 1. Civil death takes place, where a person is not actually dead, but adjudged so by law. Thus, if any person, for whose life an estate is granted, remains beyond sea, or is otherwise absent, seven years, and no proof of his being alive, he shall be accounted naturally dead. 2. Natural death means a person actually dead. DEATH-WATCH, in natural history, a species of fermes, so called on account of an old tradition, that its beating or ticking in a sick room, is a sure sign of death. See FERMES. DEAURATE, v. a. & part. pass. Į Lat.deau- gilded. Heavens on my sight what sanguine colours To exclude; to preclude; to shut out from any blaze! Spam's deathless shame! the crimes of modern days! Darwin. Ever since the passing of the acts, which punish with death, the stealing in shops, or houses, or on board ships, property of certain stated values, juries have, from motives of humanity, been in the habit of thing; to hinder. The thread-bare client's poverty Debarres the atturney of his wonted fee? Bishop Hall's Satires, v. 3. Civility, intended to make us easy, is employed in laying chains and fetters upon us, in debarring us of our wishes, and in crossing our most reasonable desires. Swift. DEBARB, v. a. Lat. from de and burba. To deprive of his beard. DEBARK, v. a. & n. Fr. debarquer. To disembark. See EMBARK. Also to strip a tree of its bark. From hence it appears that the branches of debarked oak-trees produce fewer leaf-buds, and more flower-buds, which last circumstance I suppose must depend on their being sooner or later debarked in the vernal months. Darwin. DEBASE', v. a. lessen in strength. Old Fr. debas, from de and base. See BASE. To reduce, degrade, adulterate, It is a kind of taking God's name in vain, to debase religion with such frivolous disputes. Hooker. Words so debased and hard, no stone. Was hard enough to touch them on. Hudibras. He reformed the coin, which was much adulterated and debased in the times and troubles of king Stepher Hale. Homer intended to teach, that pleasure and sensuality debase men into beasts. Broome on the Odyssey. It is a wretched debasement of that sprightly faculty, the tongue, thus to be made the interpreter to a goat or boar. Government of the Tongue. A man of large possessions has not leisure to consider of every slight expense, and will not debase himself to the management of every trifle. Dryden. Id. Without debatement further, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death. Have I not vowed for shunning such debate, (Pardon ye Satyres), to degenerate? And, wading low in this plebeian lake, That no salt wave shall froath upon my backe. Bp. Hall. Satires, iv. 4. The French requested, that the debatable ground, and the Scottish hostages, might be restored to the Scots. Hayward. motion, even when the argument was not of moment. He could not debate any thing without some com Clarendon. "Tis thine to ruin realms, o'erturn a state; Betwixt the dearest friends to raise debate. Dryden. A way that men ordinarily use, to force others to submit to their judgments, and receive their opinion in debate, is to require the adversary to admit what they alledge as a proof, or to assign a better. Locke. He presents that great soul debating upon the subject of life and death with his intimate friends. Tatler. It is to diffuse a light over the understanding, in our enquiries after truth, and not to furnish the tongue with debate and controversy. Watts's Logick. It is knowledge and experience that make a debater. DEBAUCH', v. a. & n. s. Fr. desbaucher; from Lat. de bac chor, to offer sacrifice to Bacchus : Janciently written in our language deboise and debosh. To corrupt; to violate; to vitiate, whether by lewdness or intemperance: a fit or habit of intemperance or lewdness. Debauchery, the constant practice of them. A debauchee is one who is himself devoted to lewdness or excess; a debaucher, one who corrupts others, or seduces them into vice. Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires Men so disordered, so debauched, and bold, That this our court, infected with their manners, Shews like a riotous inn. Shakspeare. King Lear. Reason once debauched, is worse than brutishness. Bp. Hall. Contemplations. They told them ancient stories of the ravishment of chaste maidens, or the debauchment of nations, or the extreme poverty of learned persons. Taylor's Rule of Holy Living. This it is to counsel things that are unjust; first, to debauch a king to break his laws, and then to seck protection. Dryden's Spanish Friar. The first physicians by debauch were made; Excess began, and sloth sustains, the trade. Dryden. DEBENTURE, n. s. Į You modern wits, should each man bring his claim, If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid. Swift. DEBENTURE is used at the custom-house for a kind of certificate, signed by the officers of the customs, which entitles a merchant, exporting goods, to the receipt of a bounty or draw back. The forms of debentures vary according to the merchandise exported. DEBILITATE, v. a. Lat. debilito, of de and habilis, fit, proper. To weaken; make unfit for exertion; to emasculate. Debile is weak, enfeebled. The a confirmed or habitual substantives express state of weakness. The spirits being rendered languid, are incapable of purifying the blood, and debilitated in attracting nutriinent. Harvey on Consumptions. In the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, they seemed as weakly to fail as their debilitated posterity ever after. Browne's Vulgar Errours. Aliment too vaporous or perspirable will subject it to the inconveniencies of too strong a perspiration, which are debility, faintness, and sometimes sudden death. Arbuthnot. DEBIR, in ancient geography, a sacerdotal city of Palestine, in the southern part of the tribe of Judah, not far from Hebron. It is also called Kirjath-sepher, and Kirjath-sannah. See Josh. xv. 15, 49. DE-BOIS-BLANC, an island of the United He, in the first flowre of my freshest age, Of a most mighty king, most rich and sage; Crying, let be that lady debonair. Zephyr met her once a-maying; Id. Miltor. DEBORAH, a prophetess, poetess, and judge of Israel, who excited Barak to deliver his country from the oppressions of Jabin. See BARAK. Her message to Barak, her reproof for his cowardice, and her song upon the victory, are recorded in Judges iv. & v. She flourished DEBT, n. s. Debt-roll, n. s. Old Fr. debte; Lat. debitum, of debeo, to owe. (That which is owed or due to another; obligation. Debted is used by Shakspeare for our modern word indebted. A debtor is he who owes money or any other obligation. I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Bar Thus Conscience pleads her cause within the breast, barians, both to the wise and to the unwise. Though long rebelled against, not yet suppressed, Cowper. Retirement. Rom. i. 14. This worthy man ful wel his wit besette; The fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and subordinate sorts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must be cheated of a third part of their estates; two other thirds they must expend in vanity; so that they remain debtors for all the necessary provisions of life, and have no way to satisfy those debts, but out of the succours and supplies of rapine. Cowley. Swift, a thousand pounds in debt, Swift. Let him who sleeps too much, borrow the pillow of A Spanish Proverb, quoted by Johnson. DEBT, NATIONAL. See FUNDS, and NATIONAL DEBT. DEBULLITION, n. s. bubbling or seething over. Lat. debullitio. A DECALOGUE, in theology, the ten commandments, which were engraved by God on two tables of stone. The Jews, by way of eminence, call these commandments, after Deut. x. 4, the ten words, from whence they had afterwards the name of decalogue. The church of Rome has, in some catechisms, united the second commandment, in an abridged form, with the first; and, to make their number complete, has divided the tenth into two. The reason is obvious. See Stillingfleet's Works, vol. vi. It should, in fairness, however, be added, that Jews, as well as Christians, have divided the commandments differently DECA'MP, v. n. Fr.decamper. To shift DECA MPMENT, n. s. the camp; to move off. The act of shifting the camp. The king of Portugal would decamp on the twentyfourth in order to march upon the enemy. Tatler. DECANT, v. a. Deca ́nter, n. s. DECANTATION. Fr. decanter; Lat. decanto. To pour off gently by inclination. A decanter is a vessel made for receiving wine perfectly clear. Take aqua fortis and dissolve it in ordinary coined ilver, and pour the coloured solution into twelve times as much fair water, and then decant or filtrate the mixture, that it may be very clear. Boyle. Swift. They attend him daily as their chief, Decant his wine, and carve his beef. DECANUS, in Roman antiquity, an officer who presided over the ten officers, and was head of the contubernium, or serjeant of a file of soldiers. DECAPITATE, v. a. ? Lat. decapito. To DECAPITATION. n. s. Sbehead. A beheading, or DECOLLATION, which see. DECAPOLIS, in ancient geography, a district beyond Jordan, almost wholly belonging to DECACU'MINATED, adj. Lat. decacumi- the half tribe of Manasseh; before the captivity, natus. Having the top cut off. DECADE, n. s. Į Gr. dexas; Lat. decas. DECAGON. n. s. The sum of ten; a number containing ten. A decagon (adding ywvia, a corner), is a figure in plane geometry, containing ten sides and angles. Men were not only out in the number of some days, the latitude of a few years, but might be wide by whole olympiads, and divers decades of years. Browne's Vulgar Errours. called Bethsan; but after, occupied by heathens. It comprises, as the name denotes, ten principal cities on the other side of the Jordan, except Scythopolis, which stood on this side, but its territory lay on the other. DEČAPROTI, DECEMPRIMI, in Roman antiquity, officers for gathering the taxes. The decaproti were also obliged to pay for the dead, or to answer to the emperor, for the quota parts of such as died out of their own estates. DECASPERMUM, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order and icosandria class of plants: CAL. perianth turbinated, quinquefid at the apex: COR. five roundish petals. The stamina are many filiform filaments, a little shorter than the corolla: PERICARP. is a dry, globular, decemlocular berry, with solitary egg-shaped seeds. DECASTYLE, in the ancient architecture, a building, with an ordnance of ten columns in front, as the temple of Jupiter Olympius was. |