Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Definition for CON-DI'TION
CON-DI'TION, n. [L. conditio, from condo, to build or make, to ordain; properly, to set or fix, or to set together or in order; con and do, to give; properly, to send.]
- State; a particular mode of being; applied to external circumstances, to the body, to the mind, and to things. We speak of a good condition or a bad condition, in reference to wealth and poverty; in reference to health and sickness; in reference to a cheerful or depressed disposition of mind; and with reference to a sound or broken, perishing state of things. The word signifies a setting or fixing, and has a very general and indefinite application, coinciding nearly with state, from sto, to stand, and denotes that particular frame, form, mode, or disposition, in which a thing exits, at any given time. A man is in a good condition, when he is thriving. A nation, with an exhausted treasury, and burdened with taxes, is not in a condition to make war. A poor man is in a humble condition. Religion affords consolation to man in every condition of life. Exhortations should be adapted to the condition of the mind. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; / Bliss is the same in subject or in king. – Pope.
- Quality; property; attribute. It seemed to us a condition and property of divine powers and beings to be hidden and unseen to others. Bacon.
- State of the mind; temper; temperament; complexion. [See No. 1.] Shak.
- Moral quality; virtue or vice. – Ralegh. South. [These senses however fall within the first definition.]
- Rank, that is, state with respect to the orders or grades of society, or to property; as, persons of the best condition. – Clarendon.
- Terms of a contract or covenant; stipulation; that is, that which is set, fixed, established or proposed. What are the conditions of the treaty? Make our conditions with yon captive king. – Dryden. He sendeth and desireth conditions of peace. – Luke xiv.
- A clause in a bond, or other contract containing terms or a stipulation that it is to be performed, and in case of failure, the penalty of the bond is to be incurred.
- Terms given, or provided, as the ground of something else; that which is established, or to be done, or to happen, as requisite to another act; as, I will pay a sum of money, on condition you will engage to refund it. A condition is a clause of contingency, on the happening of which the estate granted may be defeated. – Blackstone.
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