DEL 2 



DEFORCEMENT. 1. In England, the 

 holding of lands or tenements to which 

 another person has a right. 2. In Scot- 

 land, a resisting of an officer in the exe- 

 cution of law. 



DEF'TER-DAR (English), book-keeper. 

 The Turkish title of the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer. 



DEORADA'TION, Fr., from dt grader. 1. 

 The depriving a person of his dignity and 

 dcaree : thus an officer is degraded when 

 lie is cashiered or deprived of his commis- 

 sion. 2. In painting, a lessening and 



obscuring of distant objects in a land- 

 scape, that they may appear as they would 



do to an eye placed at a distance. 3. In 



geology, the wearing away of rocks, 

 strata, &c., by the action of water, &c. 



DEGRA'DED. In heraldry, an. epithet for 

 a cross which has steps at each end. 



DEGRE'E, from yradits, a step ; Fr. degrt. 

 1. In geometry, the 360th part of the cir- 

 cumference of a circle, denoted by a 

 small near the top of the figure, thus, 

 25. Each degree is divided into 60 mi- 

 nutes, and each minute into 60 seconds. 

 (See ANGLE). 2. In clyebra, a term ap- 

 plied to equations, to distinguish their 

 order. Thus, if the highest exponent of 

 the unknown quantity be 3, the equa- 

 tion is said to be of the third degree. 



3. In universities, a title of honour con- 

 ferred on students as a testimony of their 

 proficiency in literature and science, giv- 

 ing them a kind of rank and entitling 

 them to certain privileges, usually evinced 



by a diploma. 4. In grammar (see 



COMPARISON. 5. In geography, a. degree 



of latitude is measured upon the meridian 

 to the north or south. A degree of longi- 

 tude is a degree of the equator, or of any 



of its parallel circles. 6. In music, the 



small intervals of which the concords are 

 composed. 



DEHIS'CEXT, Lat. dehiscent, gaping ; ap- 

 plied in botany to capsules which split 

 and gape wide when ripe. 



DEIPNO'SOPHISTS, a sect of ancient phi- 

 losophers celebrated for their learned 

 conversations at meals, whence the name 

 from Si/irvox, a feast, and cro<fiia-r/;s , a so- 

 phist. 



DE'IST, a person who believes in the 

 existence of an eternal, infinite, inde- 

 pendent, intelligent Being (Deus), and 

 who, acknowledging all the obligations 

 and duties of natural religion and the 

 necessity of a general moral providence, 

 denies revealed religion. 



DE'I JCDI'CIUM, judgment of God; the 

 old Saxon trial by ordeal, thus named as 

 be ng considered an appeal to God for 

 the justice of a cause. 



DE JURE (Lat.), of right. See DE 

 FACTO. 



CRE'DERE, an Italian term used in 

 rce to express the guarantee given 



DEL 



by factors, who for an additional pre- 

 mium warrant the solvency of the parties 

 to whom they sell (roods upon crtvlii. 



DE'LE, Lat., imperative of deleo, blot 

 out or erase. 



DEL'EGATE (see LEGATE) , a commissioner 

 appointed by the sovereign to hear and 

 determine appeals from the ecclesiastical 

 courts. The Court of Delegates determine 

 appeals in all ecclesiastical causes by the 

 archbishops, and in places exempt ; also 

 when sentence is given in the Admiral's 

 Court in suits civil and marine by order 

 of the civil law. 



DELEGA'TION. In laio, from de and lego, 

 to send ; the assignment of a debt to 

 another. 



DELF, DELFT, a coarse species of porce- 

 lain originally manufactured at Delft in 

 Holland, hence called Delft-ware. It is 

 now rarely used in this country. 



DELICACY. In the fine arts, minute 

 accuracy as opposed to strength or force. 



DELIQTES'CENCE, from deliquesco, to melt 

 down ; deliquation or a spontaneous as- 

 sumption of the fluid state by certain sa- 

 line substances when left exposed to the 

 air, in consequence of the water which 

 they attract from it. 



DELIR'IUM, Lat. from de and lira, to 

 wander ; the confusion of ideas which oc- 

 curs in the progress of diseases from dis- 

 turbed functions of the brain. It is either 

 violent and frantic (delirium ferox] , as in 

 acute inflammation of the brain, or low 

 and muttering (typhomania) , as in low 

 fever. Delirium tremens is an affection of 

 the brain nearly peculiar to drunkards. 



DELPH'ISE, DELPHIN'IA, the vegeto-al- 

 kaline principle of the plant Staves-acre 

 (Delphinium staphysagria). 



DEL'PHINE EDITION. ) In bibliography, 



DELPHIN'IAN EDITION. J the name given 

 to those editions of the classics, printed 

 during the reign of Louis XIV. for the 

 use of the dauphin (in usum delphini,. 

 The Latin is arranged in the margin ac- 

 cording to the modern idiom. 



DELPHIN'IUM, the Larkspur, a genus of 

 hardy plants. Polyandria Trigynia. 

 Named from Sap/v, the dolphin, the 

 flower being thought to resemble a dol- 

 phin's head ; above 30 species. 



DELFHI'NCS, &.iX$iv, the dolphin. 1. In 

 zoology, a genus of cetaceous mammalia, 

 which in the arrangement of Linnaeus 

 comprises the sub-genera Delphin'.is, 

 (dolphins properly so called , and Pho- 



c&na (porpoises), of Cuvier. 2. In as 



tronomy, a constellation in the northern 

 hemisphere, thus named from the poeti 

 cal fable that the dolphin was translated 

 to the celestial regions by Neptune. 



DELTA, the Greek letter A- I. In ana 

 tomy, the delphys has been so named from 

 its shape. 2. In geolopy, an alluvial for- 



