Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DE-PRES'SION, n.

1. The act of pressing down; or the state of being pressed down; a low state.
2. A hollow; a sinking or falling in of a surface; or a forcing inward; as, roughness consisting in little protuberances and depressions; the depression of the skull.
3. The act of humbling; abasement; as, the depression of pride; the depression of the nobility.
4. A sinking of the spirits; dejection; a state of sadness; want of courage or animation; as, depression of the mind.
5. A low state of strength; a slate of body succeeding debility in the formation of disease. – Coxe.
6. A low state of business or of property.
7. The sinking of the polar star toward the horizon, as a person recedes from the pole toward the equator. Also, the distance of a star from the horizon below, which is measured by an arch of the vertical circle or azimuth, passing through the star, intercepted between the star and the horizon. – Bailey. Encyc.
8. In algebra, the depression of an equation, is the bringing of it into lower and more simple terms by division. – Bailey.