Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Dictionary: DIRE'NESS – DIS-A'BLING
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DIRE'NESS, n.
Terribleness; horror; dismalness. – Shak.
DI-REP'TION, n. [L. direptio.]
The act of plundering.
DIRGE, n. [durj; Usually supposed to be a contraction of L. dirige, a word used in the funeral service. In Sw. dyrka, Dan. dyrker, signifies to worship, honor, reverence.]
A song or tune intended to express grief, sorrow and mourning; as, a funeral dirge.
DIR'I-GENT, a.
Directing. – Baxter.
DIR'I-GENT, or DI-RECT'RIX, n. [See Direct.]
In geometry, the line of motion along which the describent line or surface is carried in the generation of any plane or solid figure. – Encyc.
DIRK, a. [durk.]
Dark. [Obs.] – Spenser.
DIRK, n. [durk; Scot. durk.]
A kind of dagger or poniard.
DIRK, v.t. [durk.]
- To darken. [Obs.] – Spenser.
- To poniard; to stab.
DIRK'ED, pp.
Stabbed.
DIRK'ING, ppr.
Stabbing.
DIRT, n. [durt; Sax. gedritan; D. dryten; Ice. drit, cacare.]
- Any foul or filthy substance; excrement; earth; mud; mire; dust; whatever adhering to any thing, renders it foul or unclean. The fat closed, and the dirt came out. – Judges iii. Whose waters cast up mire and dirt. – Is. lvii.
- Meanness; sordidness. [Not in use.]
DIRT, v.t. [durt.]
To make foul or filthy; to soil; to bedaub; to pollute; to defile. – Swift.
DIRT'I-ED, pp.
Made filthy.
DIRT'I-LY, adv. [durt'ily; from dirty.]
- In a dirty manner; foully; nastily; filthily.
- Meanly; sordidly; by low means.
DIRT'I-NESS, n. [durt'iness.]
- Filthiness; foulness; nastiness.
- Meanness; baseness; sordidness.
DIRT'Y, a. [durt'y.]
- Foul; nasty; filthy; not clean; as, dirty hands.
- Not clean; not pure; turbid; as, dirty water.
- Cloudy; dark; dusky; as, a dirty white.
- Mean; base; low; despicable; groveling; as, a dirty fellow; a dirty employment.
DIRT'Y, v.t. [durt'y.]
- To foul; to make filthy; to soil; as, to dirty the clothes or hands.
- To tarnish; to sully; to scandalize; applied to reputation.
DIRT'Y-ING, ppr.
Making filthy; soiling.
DI-RUP'TION, n. [L. diruptio; dirumpo, to burst.]
A bursting or rending asunder. [See Disruption.]
DIS, prep. [DIS-.]
A prefix or inseparable preposition, from the Latin, whence Fr. des, Sp. dis, and de may in some instances be the same word contracted. Dis denotes separation, a parting from; hence it has the force of a privative and negative, as in disarm, disoblige, disagree. In some cases, it still signifies separation, as in distribute, disconnect.
DIS-A-BIL'I-TY, n. [from disable.]
- Want of competent natural or bodily power, strength, or ability; weakness; impotence; as, disability arising from infirmity or broken limbs.
- Want of competent intellectual power, or strength of mind; incapacity; as, the disability of a deranged person to reason or to make contracts.
- Want of competent means or instruments. [In this sense, inability is generally used.]
- Want of legal qualifications; incapacity; as, a disability to inherit an estate, when the ancestor has been attainted. [In this sense, it has a plural.] – Blackstone. Disability differs from inability, in denoting deprivation of ability; whereas inability denotes destitution of ability, either by deprivation or otherwise.
DIS-A'BLE, v.t. [dis and able.]
- To render unable; to deprive of competent natural strength or power. A man is disabled to walk by a broken or paralytic leg, by sickness, &c.
- To deprive of mental power, as by destroying or weakening the understanding.
- To deprive of adequate means, instruments, or resources. A nation may be disabled to carry on war by want of money. The loss of a ship may disable a man to prosecute commerce, or to pay his debts.
- To destroy the strength; or to weaken and impair so as to render incapable of action, service, or resistance. A fleet is disabled by a storm, or by a battle. A ship is disabled by the loss of her masts or spars.
- To destroy or impair and weaken the means which render any thing active, efficacious, or useful; to destroy or diminish any competent means.
- To deprive of legal qualifications, or competent power; to incapacitate; to render incapable. An attainder of the ancestor corrupts the blood, and disables his children to inherit. – Eng. Law.
DIS-A'BLED, pp.
Deprived of competent power, corporeal or intellectual; rendered incapable; deprived of means.
DIS-A'BLE-MENT, n.
Weakness; disability; legal impediment. – Bacon.
DIS-A'BLING, a.
That disables or disqualifies; depriving of moral power or right; as, a disabling statute.