We pray that God will keep us from all sin and wickedness, from our ghostly enemy, and from everlasting death. Church Catechum.

DEATHBED. n. s. [death and bed.] The

bed to which a man is confined by mortal sickness.

Sweet soul, take heed, take heed of perjury; Thou art on thy death-bed. Shakspeare

Thy death-bed is no lesser than the land Wherein thou liest in reputation sick. Shekip. These are such things as a man shall remet ber with joy upon his death-bed; such a, that chear and warm his heart, even in that last and bitter agony. South's Sermons.

Then round our death-bed ev'ry friend should

Prisr

For deathless laurel is the victor's due. Dryd Faith and hope themselves shall die, While deathless charity remains. DE'ATHLIKE. adj. [death and like.] Resembling death; still; gloomy; motionless; placid; calm; peaceful; undisturbed; resembling either the horrours or the quietness of death.

Why dost thou let thy brave soul lie supprest In deathlike slumbers, while thy dangers crase Grasbaw. A waking eye and hand?

A deathlite sleep' Milten. A gentle wafting to immortal life! On seas, on earth, and all that in them dwell, A deathlike quiet and deep silence fell. Well. Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws A deatblike silence, and a dread repose. Pap. DEATH'S-DOOR. [death and door.] A near approach to death; the gates of death, πύλαι ὧδε. It is now a low phrase.

I myself knew a person of great sanctity, who was afflicted to death's-deer with a vomiting. Taylor's Wortby Communicant There was a poor young woman, that hid brought herself even to deato's-door with grief for her sick husband. L'Estrang

DEATHSMAN. n. s. [death and man.]

Executioner; hangman; headsman; he

that executes the sentence of death.
He's dead; I'm only sorry

He had no other deathsman.

Shakspeare. As deathsmen you have rid this sweet young prince. Shakspeare. DEATHWATCH. n. s. [death and watch.] An insect that makes a tinkling noise like that of a watch, and is superstitiously imagined to prognosticate death. The solemn deathwatch click'd the hour she Gay. We learn to presage approaching death in a family by raves, and little worms which we therefore call a deathratch. Watts.

died.

Misers are muckworms, silkworms beaus, And deathratches physicians. Pope. To DEA'URATE. v. a. [deauro, Lat.] To gild or cover with gold. Dict. DEAURA'TION. n. s. [from deaurate.] The act of gilding.

DEBACCHA'TION. n. s. [debacchatio, Lat.] A raging; a madness. Dict. To DEBAR. v. a. [from bar.] To exclude; to preclude; to shut out from any thing; to hinder.

The same boats and the same buildings are found in countries debarred from all commerce by unpassable mountains, lakes, and deserts. Raleigh's Essays. Not so strictly hath our Lord impos'd Labour, as to debar us when we need Refreshment; whether food, or talk between, Food of the mind.

Milton. 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. To DEBA'RB. v. a. [from de and barba, Lat.] To deprive of his beard. Dict. To DEBARK. v. a. [debarquer, French.] To disembark.

To DEBA'SE. v. a. [from base.]

Dict.

1. To reduce from a higher to a lower state.

Homer intended to teach, that pleasure and sensuality debase men into beasts. Broome.

As much as you raise silver, you debase gold: for they are in the condition of two things put in opposite scales; as much as the one rises, the other fails. Locke.

2. To make mean; to sink into meanness; to make despicable; to degrade. It is a kind of taking God's name in vain, to debase religion with such frivolous disputes. Hooker.

A man of large possessions has not leisure to consider of every slight expence, and will not debase himself to the management of every trifle. Dryden.

Restraining others, yet himself not free; Made impotent by pow'r, debas'd by dignity. Dryden.

3. To sink; to vitiate with meanness.

He ought to be careful of not letting his subject debase his style, and betray him into a meanness of expression. Addison.

Hunting after arguments to make good one side of a question, and wholly to refuse those which favour the other, is so far from giving truth its true value, that it wholly debases it.

Locke. 4. To adulterate; to lessen in value by base admixtures.

He reformed the coin, which was much adul

terated and debased in the times and troubles of king Stephen.

Hale.

Words so debas'd and hard, no stone Was hard enough to touch them on. Hudibras. DEBA'SEMENT. n.s. [from debase.] The act of debasing or degrading; degradation.

It is a wretched debasement of that sprightly faculty, the tongue, thus to be made the interpreter to a goat or boar. Gov. of the Tongut. DEBA'SER. n. s. [from debase. He that debases; he that adulterates; he that degrades another; he that sinks the value of things, or destroys the dignity of persons.

DEBATABLE. adj. [from debate.] Disputable; subject to controversy.

The French requested, that the debatable ground, and the Scottish hostages, might be restored to the Scots. Hayward

DEBATE. n. s. [debat, French.]
1. A personal dispute; a controversy.

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 allege as a proof, or to assign a better. Locke.

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. 2. A quarrel; a contest: it is not now used of hostile contest.

Now, lords, if heav'n doth give successful end To this debate that bleedeth at our doors, We will our youth lead on to higher fields, And draw no swords but what are sanctified. Shakspeare.

'Tis thine to ruin realms, o'erturn a state; Betwixt the dearest friends to raise debate. Dry. To DEBATE. v. a. [debattre, French.] To controvert; to dispute; to contest.

Debate thy cause with thy neighbour_himself, and discover not a secret to another. Proverbs. He could not debate any thing without some commotion, even when the argument was not of Clarendon.

moment.

He presents that great soul debating upon the subject of life and death with his intimate friends. Tatler.

DEBATEFUL. adj. [from debate.] 1. [Of persons.] Quarrelsome; contentious.

2. [Of things.] Contested; occasioning quarrels. DEBATEMENT. n. s. [from debate.] Controversy; deliberation.

Without debatement further, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death. Shakspeare. DEBATER. n. s. [from debate.] A disputant: a controvertist. To DEBAUCH. v. a. [debaucher, Fr. debacchari, Lat.]

1. To corrupt; to vitiate.

A man must have got his conscience thoroughly debauched and hardened, before he can arrive to the height of sin South.

This it is to counsel things that are unjust; first to debauch a king to break his laws, and then to seek protection. Dryden.

2. To corrupt with lewdness.

Here do you keep a hundred knights and
squires;

Men so disorder'd, so debauch'd and bold,
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shews like a riotous inn.
Shakspeare.

3. To corrupt by intemperance.

No man's reason did ever dictate to him that it is reasonable for him to debauch himself by intemperance and brutish sensuality. Tillotson. DEBAUCH. n. s. [from the verb.] 1. A fit of intemperance.

He will for some time contain himself within

the bounds of sobriety; till within a little while he recovers his former debauch, and is well again, and then his appetite returns. Calamy. 2. Luxury; excess; lewdness.

The first physicians by debauch were made; Excess began, and sloth sustains, the trade. Dry. DEBAUCHE'E. n. s. [from debauché, Fr.] A lecher; a drunkard; a man given to intemperance.

Could we but prevail with the greatest debauchees amongst us to change their lives, we should find it no very hard matter to change their judgments. South. DEBAUCHER. n. s. [from debauch] One who seduces others to intemperance or lewdness; a corrupter.

DEBAUCHERY. n. s. [from debauch.] The practice of excess; intemperance; lewdness.

Oppose vices by their contrary virtues; hypocrisy by sober piety, and debauchery by temperSpratt.

ance.

These magistrates, instead of lessening enormities, occasion just twice as much debauchery as there would be without them. Swift DEBAUCHMENT. n. s. [from debauch.] The act of debauching or vitiating; corruption.

They told them ancient stories of the ravishment of chaste maidens, or the debauchment of nations, or the extreme poverty of learned perTaylor's Rule of Living Holy.

sons.

To weaken; to make faint; to enter. ble; to emasculate.

In the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, they seemed as weakly re ful as their debilitated posterity ever after. Br

The spirits being rendered languid, are a pable of purifying the blood, and debiluated in attracting nutriment. Harvey on Consump DEBILITA'TION. n. s. [from debilitatio, Latin.] The act of weakening.

The weakness cannot return any thing of strength, honour, or safety, to the head; but a debilitation and ruin. King Charki DEBILITY. n. s. [debilitas, Lat.] Weakness; feebleness; languour; faintness; imbecility.

Methinks I am partaker of thy passion, And in thy case do glass mine own debuity. Sidney

Aliment too vaporous or perspirable will subject it to the inconveniencies of too strong a perspiration; which are debility, faintness, and some times sudden death. Arbuthaa.

DEBONATR. adj. [debonnaire, French.] Elegant; civil; well-bred; gentle; complaisant. Obsolete.

Crying, Let be that lady debonair, Thou recreant knight; and soon thyself prepare To battle, if thou mean her love to gain. Spen Zephyr met her once a-maying; Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Milton

[debitum, Latin; dette, Fr.] 1. That which one man owes to another. There was one that died greatly in debt: Well, says one, if he be gone, then he hath car ried five hundred ducats of mine with him into the other world. Bacon's Apophthens.

The debt of ten thousand talents, which the servant owed the king, was no slight ordinary Duppa's Devotion

sum.

To this great loss a sea of tears is due; But the whole debt not to be paid by you. Wa. Swift, a thousand pounds in debt, Takes horse, and in a mighty fret Rides day and night.

Swift.

2. That which any one is obliged to do or suffer.

Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's deft; He only liv'd but till he was a man, But like a man he died. Shakspeare's Math DEBTED. part. [from debt. To DEST is not found.] Indebted; obliged to.

Which do amount to three odd ducats more Than I stand debted to this gentleman. Shaki. DEBTOR. n. s. [debitor, Latin.] 1. He that owes something to another.

I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the prvise.

2. One that owes money.

I'll bring your latter hazard back again, And thankfully rest debtor for the first. Shak If he his ample palm Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay Of debtor, straight his body to the touch Obsequious, as whilom knights were wont, To some enchanted castle is convey'd. Phiips,

Dict.

DEBULLITION. n. s. [debullitio, Latin.] A bubbling or seething over. DECACU'MINATED. adj. [decacuminatus, Lat.] Having the top or point cut off. Dict. DECADE. n. s. [dixa; decas, Latin.] The sum of ten; a number containing ten. 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. Brown's Vulgar Erreurs. We make cycles and periods of years; as decades, centuries, and chiliads; chiefly for the use of computations in history, chronology, and astronomy. Holder on Time.

All rank'd by ten; whole decades, when they dine,

Must want a Trojan slave to pour the wine.

Pope. DECADENCY. n. s. [decadence, French.] Decay; fall. Dict. DE'CAGON. n. s. [from dixa, ten, and yola, a corner.] A plain figure in geometry, having ten sides and angles. DECALOGUE. n. s. [δεκαλογο.] The ten commandments given by God to Moses.

The commandments of God are clearly revealed both in the decalogue and other parts of sacred writ. Hammond.

To DECA'MP. v. n. [decamper, French.] To shift the camp; to move off. DECA'MPMENT. n. s. [from decamp.] The act of shifting the camp. To DECA'NT. v. a. [decanto, Lat. decanter, Fr.] To pour off gently by in

clination.

To behead.

TO DECAY. v. a. To impair; to bring to decay.

Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make better the fool.

Shakspeare. Cut off a stock of a tree; and lay that which you cut off to putrefy, to see whether it will decay the rest of the stock. Bacon. He was of a very small and decayed fortune, and of no good education. Clarendon. Decay'd by time and wars, they only prove Their former beauty by your former love.

Dryden. In Spain our springs, like old men's children, be

Decay'd and wither'd from their infancy. Dryd. It so ordered, that almost every thing which corrupts the soul decays the body. Addison. DECAY. n. s. [from the verb.] 1. Decline from the state of perfection; state of depravation or diminution. What comfort to this great decay may come, Shall be applied. Shakspeare. She has been a fine lady, and paints and hides Her decays very well. Ben Jonson. And those decays, to speak the naked truth, Through the defects of age, were crimes of youth. Denham.

2.

By reason of the tenacity of fluids, and attrition of their parts, and the weakness of elasticity in solids, motion is much more apt to be lost than got, and is always upon the decay. Nerton.

Each may feel increases and decays, And see now clearer and now darker days. Pope. Taught, half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away.

Pope. The effects of diminution; the marks of 'decay.

They think, that whatever is called old must have the decay of time upon it, and truth too were liable to mould and rottenness. Locke.

3. Declension from prosperity.

4.

And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him. Leviticus.

I am the very man

That, from your first of difference and decay, Have follow'd your sad steps. Shakspears. The cause of decline."

He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men, hath a great task; but that is ever good for the publick: but he that plots to be the only figure among cyphers, is the decay of a whole Bacon.

age.

DECA'YER. n. s. [from decay.] That which causes decay.

Your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Shakspeare's Hamlet. DECE'ASE. n. s. [decessus, Lat.] Death; departure from life.

Lands are by human law, in some places, after the owner's decease, divided unto all his children; in some, all descendeth to the eldest son. Hooker.

To DECE'ASE. v. n. [decedo, Latin.] To die; to depart from life.

He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night. Shak.
You shall die

Twice now, where others, that mortality
In her fair arms holds, shall but once decease.
Chapman.

His latest victories still thickest came,
As, near the centre, motion doth increase;
Till he, press'd down by his own weighty name,
Did, like the vestal, under spoils decease. Dryden.
DECEIT. n. s. [deceptio, Latin.]

1. Fraud; a cheat; a fallacy; any practice by which falsehood is made to pass for truth.

Job.

My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. 2. Stratagem; artifice. His demand

Springs not from Edward's well-ineant honest love,

But from deceit bred by necessity. Shakspeare. 3. In law.] A subtile wily shift or device; all manner of craft, subtilty, guile, fraud, wiliness, sleightness, cunning, covin, collusion, practice, and offence, used to deceive another man by any means, which hath no other proper or particular name but offence. Corvell. DECEITFUL. adj. [deccit and full.] Fraudulent; full of deceit.

I

grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful. Shaksp. The lovely young Lavinia once had friends, And fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth.

Thomson.

DECEITFULLY. adv. [from deceitful.]
Fraudulently; with deceit.
Exercise of form
of course.

form may be deceitfully dispatched

Wotton. DECEITFULNESS. n. s. [from deceitful.] The quality of being fraudulent; tendency to deceive.

The care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. Matthew.

DECEIVABLE. adj. [from deceive.]
1. Subject to fraud; exposed to imposture.
Man was not only deceivable in his integrity,
but the angels of light in all their clarity. Brown.
How would thou use me now, blind, and
thereby

Deceivable, in most things as a child
Helpless? hence easily contemn'd and scorn'd,
And last neglected.
Milton.

2. Subject to produce errour; deceitful. It is good to consider of deformity, not as a sign, which is more deceivable, but as a cause which seldom faileth of the effect. Bacon.

He received nothing but fair promises, which proved deceivable. Hayward.

O everfailing trust

In mortal strength! and oh, what not in man Deservable and vain? Milton. DECEIVABLENESS. n. s. [from deceivable.] Liableness to be deceived, or to deceive.

He that has a great patron, has the advantage of his negligence and deceivableness.

Government of the Tongue. To DECEIVE. v. a. [decipio, Latin.] 1. To cause to mistake; to bring into errour; to impose upon.

Some have been deceroed into an opinion, that there was a divine right of primogeniture to both estate and power. Lockt.

2. Ta delude by stratagem. 3. To cut off from expectation, with of before the thing.

The Turkish general, deceived of his expectation, withdrew his fleet twelve miles oft, Knolles. I now believ'd

The happy day approach'd, nor are my hopes deceis'd. Dryden. 4. To mock; to fail.

They rais'd a feeble cry with trembling notes, But the weak voice deceiv'd their gasping threats Dryden

5. To deprive by fraud or stealth.

Wine is to be forborne in consumptions; for that the spirits of the wine prey on the viscid juice of the body, intercommon with the spiras of the body, and so deceive and rob them of their nourishment. BALO Plant fruit-trees in large borders; and set therein fine flowers, but thin and sparingly lest they deceive the trees. Bacon.

DECE'IVER. 2.5. [from dereive.] One that

leads another into errour; a cheat. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more; Men were deceivers ever:

One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never.

Shakspear

As for Perkin's dismission out of France, they interpreted it not as if he were detected for a counterfeit deceiver. Ba..

Those voices, actions, or gestures, which mea have not by any compact agreed to make the instruments of conveying their thoughts one to another, are not the proper instruments of deceiving, so as to denominate the person wing them a liar or deceiver.

South

It is to be admired how any deceiver can be sa weak to foretel things near at hand, when a very few months must of necessity discover the unposture.

Swift. Pope.

Adieu the heart-expanding bowl, And all the kind deceivers of the soul! DECEMBER. n.5. [December, Lat.] The last month of the year; but named december, or the tenth month, when the year began in March.

Men are April when they woo, and De ber when they wed. Shakspeare's As you like it. What should we speak of

Dict.

When we are old as you? when we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December. Shaki DECEMPEDAL. adj. [from decempeda, Lat.] Ten feet in length. DECE'MVIRATE. N. S. [decemviratus, Lat.] The dignity and office of the ten governours of Rome, who were appointed to rule the commonwealth instead of consuls their authority subsisted only two years. Any body of ten men. DE'CENCE. n.s. [decence, Fr. decet, DECENCY. Latin.]

1. Propriety of form; proper formality; becoming ceremony: decence is seldom used.

Those thousand decencies, that daily flow From all her words and actions.

In good works there may be goodness in the general; but decence and gracefulness can be only in the particulars in doing the good. Sprat

Were the offices of religion stript of all the external decencies of worship, they would not make a due impression on the minds of those who assist at them. Atterbary

She speaks,behaves, and acts, just as she oughts But never, never reach'd one gen'rous thought: Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, Content to dwell in decencies for ever. Pet 2. Suitableness to character; propriety. And must I own, she said, my secret smart, What with more decence were in silence kept?

The consideration immediately subsequent to the being of a thing, is what agrees or disagrees with that thing; what is suitable or unsuitable to