Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DAM'NA-TO-RY, a.

Containing a sentence of condemnation. Waterland.

DAM'NED, pp.

1. Sentenced to everlasting punishment in a future state; condemned.
2. adj. Hateful; detestable; abominable; a word chiefly used in profaneness by persons of vulgar manners.

DAM-NIF'IC, a. [See Damnify.]

Procuring loss; mischievous.

DAM'NI-FI-ED, pp. [See Damnify.]

Injured; endamaged.

DAM'NI-FY, v.t. [L. damnifico; damnum and facio; It. dannificare.]

1. To cause loss or damage to; to hurt in estate or interest; to injure; to endamage; as, to damnify a man in his goods or estate.
2. To hurt; to injure; to impair; applied to the person. Spenser.

DAM'NI-FY-ING, ppr.

Hurting; injuring; impairing.

DAM'NING, ppr.

1. 1. Dooming to endless punishment; condemning.
2. a. That condemns or exposes to damnation; as, a damning sin.

DAM'NING-NESS, n.

Tendency to bring damnation. Hammond.

DAMNUM-ABSQUE-INJURIA, n. [Damnum absque injuria. L.]

Loss without injury, of the which the law can take cognizance.

DAMP, a. [G. dampf; D. damp; Sw. damb; Dan. damp, steam, vapor, fog, smoke; perhaps steam is from the same root, from wasting; Sans. dhuma. See Class Dm, No. 33.]

1. Moist; humid; being in a state between dry and wet; as, a damp cloth; damp air; sometimes, foggy; as. the atmosphere is damp; but it may be damp without visible vapor.
2. Dejected; sunk; depressed; chilled. [Unusual.] Milton.

DAMP, n.

1. Moist air; humidity; moisture; fog. Milton.
2. Dejection; depression of spirits; chill. We say, to strike a damp, or to cast a damp, on the spirits. Milton.
3. [Damps, plu.] Noxious exhalations issuing from the earth, and deleterious or fatal to animal life. These are often known to exist in wells which continue long covered and not used, and in mines and coal-pits; and sometimes they issue from the old lavas of volcanoes. These damps are usually the carbonic acid gas, vulgarly called choke-damp, which instantly suffocates; or some inflammable gas, called fire-damp.

DAMP, v.t.

1. To moisten; to make humid, or moderately wet.
2. To chill; to deaden; to depress or deject; to abate; as, to damp the spirits; to damp the ardor of passion. Swift.
3. To weaken; to make dull; as, to damp sound. Bacon.
4. To check or restrain, as action or vigor; to make languid; to discourage; as, to damp industry. Bacon.

DAMP'ED, pp.

Chilled; depressed; abated; weakened; checked; discouraged.

DAMP'EN, v.t.

To make damp or moist.

DAMP'EN-ING, ppr.

Making damp. Judge Johnson.

DAMP'ER, n.

1. That which damps or checks; a valve or sliding plate in a furnace to stop or lessen the quantity of air admitted, and thus to regulate the heat or extinguish the fire. Edwards, W. Ind. Rumford.
2. A part of a piano-forte, by which the sound is deadened.

DAMP'ING, ppr.

Chilling; deadening; dejecting; abating; checking; weakening.

DAMP'ISH, a.

Moderately damp, or moist.

DAMP'ISH-LY, adv.

In a dampish manner.

DAMP'ISH-NESS, n.

A moderate degree of dampness, or moistness; slight humidity.

DAMP'NESS, n.

Moisture; fogginess; moistness; moderate humidity; as, the dampness of the air, of the ground, or of a cloth.

DAMPS, n. [See DAMP.]

DAMP'Y, a.

Dejected; gloomy. [Little used.] Hayward.

DAM'SEL, n. [s as z. Fr. damoiselle and demoiselle, a gentlewoman, and damoiseau, a spark or beau; Norm. damoisells, or demicelles, nobles, sons of kings, princes, knights, lords, ladies of quality, and damoyseles, damsels, female infants; Sp. damisola, a young gentlewoman, any girl not of the lower class. The Arm. ma-mesell, va-mesell, or man-mesell, a woman or madam, seems to indicate that the first syllable is a prefix, and mesell, Eng. miss, a distinct word. But damoiselle, Norm. demicelle, from which we have damsel, is doubtless from the Italian damigella, a diminutive formed from dama, like the L. domicilium, from domus, and penicillus, from the root of penna. The Italian damigello, in the masculine gender, shows the propriety of the ancient application of damsel to males.]

A young woman. Formerly, a young man or woman of noble or genteel extraction; as, Damsel Pepin; Damsel Richard, prince of Wales. It is now used only of young women, and is applied to any class of young unmarried women, unless to the most vulgar, and sometimes to country girls. With her train of damsels she was gone. Dryden. Then Boaz said, whose damsel is this? Ruth ii. This word is rarely used in conversation, or even in prose writings of the present day; but it occurs frequently in the Scriptures, and in poetry.

DAM'SON, n. [dam'zn; contracted from damascene, the Damascus plum.]

The fruit of a variety of the Prunus domestica; a small black plum.