DEF 
DEF 
D E G 
till the parapet of its flank is beaten down, 
and the cannon, in all parts that can lire 
upon that face which is attacked, are dis- 
mounted. 
Defence, line of a supposed line drawn 
from the angle of the curtin, or from any 
other part in the curtin, to the flanked angle 
of the opposite bastion. A line of defence re- 
presents the flight of a musquet-ball from the 
place where the musqueteers stand, to scour 
the face of the bastion, and ought never to 
exceed the reach of a musquet. It is either 
fi chant or rasant ; the first is when it is drawn 
from the angle of the curtin to the flanked 
angle ; the last when it is drawn from a point 
in tne curtin, rasing the face of the bastion. 
Defence, in law, signifies a plea, or what 
the defendant ought to make after the plain- 
tiff’s count, or declaration, viz. that he de- 
fends all the wrong, force, and damages, 
where and when he ought, &c. If the defend- 
ant would plead to the jurisdiction, he must 
omit the words “ where and when he ought ; ’ 
and if he would shew any disability in the 
plaintiff, and demand judgment if the plain- 
tiff shall be answered, then he ought to omit 
the defence of the damage. There is a full 
defence usually in personal actions. 
DEFEllENTIA VASA. See Anatomy. 
DEFICIENT NUMBERS, those whose 
parts or multiples added together fall short 
of the integer, of which they are the parts: 
such is 8, its parts, 1, 2, 4,' making only 7. 
See the article Number. 
DEFILE, in fortification, a straight narrow 
passage, through which a company of horse 
or foot can pass only in file, by making a 
small front; so that the enemy may take an 
opportunity to stop their march, and to 
charge them with so much the more advan- 
tage, as those in the front and rear cannot re- 
ciprocally come to the relief of one another. 
To Defile, is to reduce an army to a 
small front, in order to march through a de- 
file, 
DEFINITION, in rhetoric, is described 
by Cicero, a short comprehensive explana- 
tion. 
The special rules for a good definition are 
these : 1. A definition must be universal, or 
adequate, that is, it must agree to all the 
particular species or individuals that are in- 
cluded under the same idea. 2. It must be 
proper, and peculiar to the thing defined, 
and agree to that alone. These two rules 
being observed will always render a defini- 
tion reciprocal with the thing defined, that 
is, the definition may be used in the place of 
the thing defined : or they may be mutually , 
affirmed concerning each other. 3. A defi- 
nition should be clear and jSlain ; and indeed 
it is a general rule concerning tire definition 
both of names and things, that no word 
should be used in either of them which has 
any difficulty in it, unless it has been before 
defined. 4.* A definition should be short, so 
that it must have no tautology in it, nor any 
words superfluous. 5. Neither the thing de- 
fined, nor a mere synonymous name should 
make any part of the .definition. 
DEFLAGRATION. See Chemistry. 
DEFOLIATION (from dr, and folium- a 
leaf), the fall of the leaves ; a term opposed 
to frondescentia, the annual renovation of 
the leaves, produced by the unfolding of the 
Yol. I. 
buds in Spring. Most plants in cold and 
temperate climates shed their leaves every 
year : this happens in autumn, and is gene- 
rally announced by the flowering of the 
common meadow-saffron. The term is only 
applied to trees and shrubs ; tor herbs perish 
down to the root every year, losing stem, 
leaves, and all. 
All plants do not drop their leaves at the 
same time. Among large trees, the ash and 
the walnut, although latest in unfolding, are 
soonest divested of them : the latter seldom 
carries its leaves above five months. On the 
oak and hornbeam the leaves die and wither 
as soon as the cold commences ; but remain 
attached to the branches till they are pushed 
off by the new ones, which unfold them- 
selves in the' following spring. These trees 
are doubtless a kind of half evergreens : the 
leaves are probably destroyed only by cold ; 
and perhaps would continue longer on the 
plant but for the force of the spring-sap, 
joined to the moisture. 
In mild and dry seasons the lilac, privet, 
yellow jessamine of the woods, and maple of 
Crete, preserve their leaves green until 
spring, and do not drop them, till the newv 
leaves are beginning to appear. The fig-tree, 
and many other trees that grow between the 
tropics, are of this particular class of ever- 
greens. The trees in Egypt, says doctor 
ilasselquist, cast their leaves in the end 
of December and the beginning of January, 
having young leaves ready before all the old 
ones are fallen off; and to forward this ope- 
ration of nature few of the trees have buds : 
the sycamore and willow, indeed, have some, 
but with few and quite loose stipulae or scales. 
Nature did not imagine buds so necessary in 
the southern as in the northern countries : 
this occasions a great difference between 
them. 
Lastly, some trees and shrubs preserve 
their leaves constantly through the whole 
year, and are not in the least influenced by 
clemency or inclemency of seasons. Such 
are the firs, juniper, yew, cedar, cypress, 
and many other trees, hence denominated 
evergreens. These preserve their old leaves 
a long time after the formation of the new, 
and do not drop them at any determinate 
time. In general, the leaves of evergreens 
are harder, and less succulent, than those 
which are renewed annually. These trees are 
generally natives of warm climates ; as the 
alaternuses of France and Italy, the ever- 
green oak of Portugal and Suabia. 
The following table, respecting the mean 
times in which different trees shed their 
leaves, is founded upon observation : 
Gooseberry-tree and blad-q 
der-sena. 
Walnut and ash. 
Almond-tree, horse-chesnut, 
and lime-tree. 
Maple, hazel-nut, black pop- 
lar, and aspen-tree, 
Birch, plane-tree, mountain 
osier, false acacia, pear, 
and apple-tree, ' - 
Vine, mulberry, fig,. sumac, 
and angelica-tree, 
Elm-tree and willow , 
Apricot and elder-trees, 
■3 R 
20 . 
25. 
D- 
J o 
Nov. 1. 
10 . 
20 . 
TT- 
It deserves to be remarked, that an ever- 
green tree grafted upon a deciduous, deter- 
mines the latter to retain its leaves. 1 his 
observation is confirmed by repeated experi- 
ments, particularly by grafting the laurel, or 
cherry-bay, an evergreen, on the common 
cherry ; and the ilex, or evergreen oak, on 
the oak. 
DEFORCEMENT, in law, the casting 
any one out of his land, or a withholding ot 
lands and tenements by force from the right 
owner. 
Deforcement, in the law of Scotland, is 
used for resisting, or offering violence to the 
officers of the law, while they are actually 
employed in the exercise of their functions, 
by putting its orders and sentences in execu- 
tion. The punishment of this crime is con- 
fiscation of moveables, joined w ith some arbi- 
trary punishment, as fine, imprisonment, ba- 
nishment, or corporal pains,, according to the 
degree of violence, and other circumstances 
which aggravate the crime. 
DEFORCEOR, in law, is a person that 
overcomes and casts forth another from his 
lands and tenements by force, and differs 
from a disseisor on this account : 1 . That a 
man may be disseised without force. 2. A 
man may deforce another that never was in 
possession ; as where many have a right to 
lands, as common heirs, and one of them 
enters and keeps out the rest. A deforceor 
likewise differs from an intruder, w ho is made 
by r a wrongful entry' only into land, & e . void 
of a possessor, wdiilst a deforceor is he that 
holds out against the right heir. 
DEFTERDAR, or defiardar, in the 
Turkish and Persian polity, an officer of 
state, answering to our lord treasurer, who 
appoints deputies in every province. 
DEGLUTITION, in medicine, the act 
of swallowing the food: performed by means 
of the tongue driving the aliment info the 
oesophagus, which, by the contraction of the 
sphincter, protrudes the contents down- 
wards. 
DEGRADATION, a punishment of de- 
linquent ecclesiastics. Die canon-law dis- 
tinguishes it into two sorts: the one sum- 
mary, by word only ; the other solemn, by- 
stripping the person degraded of those orna- 
ments and rights which are the ensigns of his 
order or degree. The canonists likewise dis- 
tinguish degradation from deposition ; un- 
derstanding by the latter the depriving a man 
of his clerical orders, but by the former only the 
removing him from his rank or degree. In the 
antient primitive church, degrading a clergy- 
man W'as reducing him to the state and com- 
munion of laymen. The full import of the 
phrase, however, is the depriving him of his 
orders, and reducing him to the simple con- 
dition of a layman ; a punishment inflicted 
for several offences, as adultery', theft, or 
fraud: and clergymen thus reduced were 
seldom allowed to recover their antient sta- 
tion, except upon some great necessity, or 
very pressing reason. Degradation in the 
Romish church is attended w ith a great deal 
of ceremony. The offender is stripped of his 
pontifical vestments, and at the same time 
the person who degrades him scrapes his fin- 
gers with a knife, or a little piece of glass, 
declaring to him that the power of to ise- 
