Dictionary: DESS – DE-STRUCT'I-BLE

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DESS, n.

For Desk. [Not in use.] – Chaucer. Spenser.

DES-SERT', n. [dezzert'. Fr. dessert, from desservir, to clear the table; de and servir, to serve.]

A service of fruits and sweetmeats, at the close of an entertainment; the last course at the table, after the meat is removed.

DES-TEM'PER, n. [Fr. detrempe.]

In painting, a sort of painting with opake colors, ground and diluted with water and gluten. – Elmes.

DES'TI-NATE, a.

Appointed; destined; determined. – Morton.

DES'TI-NATE, v.t. [L. destino, destinatus.]

To design or appoint. [Seldom used. See Destine.]

DES-TI-NA'TING, ppr.

Designing; appointing.

DES-TI-NA'TION, n. [L. destinatio.]

  1. The act of destining or appointing.
  2. The purpose for which any thing is intended or appointed; end or ultimate design. Every animal is fitted for its destination.
  3. The place to which a thing is appointed, as, the ship left her destination; but it is more usual to say, the place of her destination.

DES'TINE, v.t. [L. destino; probably de and stino or stano. There seems to have been a root of this orthography, different from L. sto, which we find in obstinate, obstino, præstino, and in Russ. stanovlyu, is to set or place, stan is stature, and we have stanchion, and stone, Sax. stan, perhaps from the same root. The words beginning with st, as stable, steady, stage, stand, signify to set, but the difference of final articulation seems to indicate a difference of roots – stab, stad, stag, stan.]

  1. To set, ordain, or appoint to a use, purpose, state, or place. We destine a son to the ministerial office; a house for a place of worship; a ship for the London trade, or to Lisbon; and we are all destined to a future state of happiness or misery.
  2. To fix unalterably, as by a divine decree; as, the destined hour of death.
  3. To doom; to devote; to appoint unalterably. – Prior.

DES'TIN-ED, pp.

Ordained; appointed by previous determination; devoted; fixed unalterably.

DES'TIN-ING, ppr.

Ordaining; appointing.

DES'TIN-IST, n.

A believer in destiny.

DES'TI-NY, n. [Fr. destin; It. destino; Sp. id.]

  1. State or condition appointed or predetermined; ultimate fate; as, men are solicitous to know their future destiny, which is however happily concealed from them.
  2. Invincible necessity; fate; a necessity or fixed order of things established by a divine decree, or by an indissoluble connection of causes and effects. But who can turn the stream of destiny? – Spenser. Destinies, the fates, or supposed powers which preside over human life, spin it out, and determine it; called by the Latins, parcæ.

DES'TI-TUTE, a. [L. destitutus, destituo; de and statuo, to set. Literally, set from or away.]

  1. Not having or possessing; wanting; as, destitute of virtue, or of piety; destitute of food and clothing. It differs from deprived, as it does not necessarily imply previous possession.
  2. Needy; abject; comfortless; friendless. He will regard the prayer of the destitute. – Ps. cii.

DES'TI-TUTE, n.

One who is without friends or comfort.

DES'TI-TUTE, v.t.

  1. To forsake. [Not used.] – Fotherby.
  2. To deprive. [Not used.] – Bacon.

DES-TI-TU'TION, n.

Want; absence of a thing; a state in which something is wanted or not possessed; poverty. – Hooker. Taylor.

DE-STROY', v.t. [L. destruo; de and struo, to pile, to build; Fr. detruire; It. distruggere; Sp. and Port. destruir. See Structure.]

  1. To demolish; to pull down; to separate the parts of an edifice, the union of which is necessary to constitute the thing; as, to destroy a house or temple; to destroy a fortification.
  2. To ruin; to annihilate a thing by demolishing or by burning; as, to destroy a city.
  3. To ruin; to bring to naught; to annihilate; as, to destroy a theory or scheme; to destroy a government; to destroy influence.
  4. To lay waste; to make desolate. Go up against this land, and destroy it. – Is. xxxvi.
  5. To kill; to slay; to extirpate; applied to men or other animals. Ye shall destroy all this people. – Num. xxxii. All the wicked will he destroy. – Ps. cxlv.
  6. To take away; to cause to cease; to put an end to; as, pain destroys happiness. That the body of sin might be destroyed. – Rom. vi.
  7. To kill; to eat; to devour; to consume. Birds destroy insects. Hawks destroy chickens.
  8. In general, to put an end to; to annihilate a thing, or the form in which it exists. An army is destroyed by slaughter, rapture, or dispersion; a forest, by the ax, or by fire; towns, by fire or inundation, &c.
  9. In chimistry, to resolve a body into its parts or elements.

DESTROY'A-BLE, a.

That may be destroyed. Plants scarcely destroyable by the weather. – Derham. [Little used.]

DE-STROY'ED, pp.

Demolished; pulled down; ruined; annihilated; devoured; swept away, &c.

DE-STROY'ER, n.

One who destroys, or lays waste; one who kills a man, or an animal, or who ruins a country, cities, &c.

DE-STROY'ING, n.

Destruction. – Milton.

DE-STROY'ING, ppr.

Demolishing; laying waste; killing; annihilating; putting an end to.

DE-STRUCT', v.

for Destroy, is not used.

DE-STRUCT'I-BIL-I-TY, n.

The quality of being capable of destruction.

DE-STRUCT'I-BLE, a. [L. destruo, destructum.]

Liable to destruction; cable of being destroyed.