state of morals in which the gross vices are openly practised in defiance of all decorum; that is a corrupt state of society in which vice has secretly insinuated itself into all the principles and habits of men, and concealed its deformity under the fair semblance of virtue and honour: thus, the manners of savages are most likely to be depraved; those of civilized nations to be corrupt.

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The terms contaminate, defile, and pollute, are used in the sense of injuring purity; corrupt, has the idea of destroying it. Language being the conduit whereby men convey their knowledge, he that makes an ill use of it, though he does not corrupt the fountains of knowledge which are in things, yet he stops the pipes." Locke.

Cotemporary. See CONTEMPORARY.

Crater, from cratera, a cup, a term applied to the mouth of a volcano, or burning mountain, from its being hollow like a cup.

Create, from creo, I form out of nothing.-Creation. The act of creating.-Creative. Having the power to create.-Creator. The being that creates.- Creature. A being not self-existent, but created by the supreme power. Any thing created. "God's first creature was light." Bacon. Credence, from credo, I believe. Belief.-Credenda. Things to be believed; articles of faith; distinguished from agenda, or things to be done.-Credential. That which gives a title to credit; the warrant upon which belief or authority is claimed. "A few persons of an odious and despised country could not have filled the world with believers, had they not shown undoubted credentials from the Divine Person who sent them on such a message." Addison on the Christian Religion. -Credibility. Claim to credit; worthiness of being believed; Calculate the several degrees of credibility and conviction, by which one evidence surpasseth the other."-Credible. Worthy of credit. "None can demonstrate to me, that there is such an island as

Jamaica; yet, upon the testimony of credible persons, I am free from doubt."

Credit. Belief of; faith yielded to another. Trust reposed, with regard to property: correlative to debt. -Creditor. He that gives credit, he to whom a debt is owed correlative to debtor-Credulity. Easiness of belief. Credulous. Apt to believe.--Creed. A short account of the chief articles of the Christian faith; thus called from the first word, credo, I believe. The principal creeds are the Apostles', the Athanasian, and the Nicene. These three creeds are enjoined by the eighth article of the Church of England to be received and believed.

Crescent, from crescens, increasing. The moon in her state of increase; any similitude of the moon increasing. Cruci-fixion, from crux, crucis, a cross, and fixus, fastened. The punishment of nailing to a cross. Cul-tivate. See COLO, p. 8.

Curtail, from curto, I shorten. "It was anciently written curtal, which perhaps is more proper; but dogs that had their tail cut being called curtal dogs, the word was vulgarly conceived to mean originally to cut the tail, and was in time written according to that notion." Johnson." This humour for speaking no more than we must, has miserably curtailed some of our words; and, in familiar writing and conversation, they often lose all but their first syllable." Addison,

D.

DATIVE. (See Do, p. 10.) The epithet of the case that signifies giving something to a person. See CASE.

DE*, in composition, denotes motion downwards

*

"The Latin preposition de, is synonymous with our of, or off. AB, from, refers to the source or beginning.

or sidewards, as deject, depart; it expresses being off, or away from, something to which the primitive refers; as detain, (teneo, I hold or keep,) I keep from; or being from that which the primitive word itself denotes; despair, (spes, hope,) I am from hope, or I have no hope: hence it marks privation, as in debility; and cessation, as in decrease." Booth.

De-bility, (see HABEO, p. 17,) signifies, not having (power.) To weaken is either a particular or a complete act; to enfeeble, to debilitate, and enervate, are properly partial acts: what enfeebles, deprives of vital power; what debilitates, lessens power in one particular, though not another: for example, the severe ex

De refers to the fact of being separate; it makes that off, or separate, which was formerly on, or one with the whole mass. [On is a complete junction, forming a union between the primary substance and that which is brought to it. Upon, is a species of on; it is on the upper side.] From (ab) and off (de) may often be substituted respectively for one another. I lifted the stone from the ground,' and I lifted the stone off the ground,' are equally expressive of the action; but from states where the stone was when I began to lift it, and off directs us to the substance from which separated: I lifted the stone from the ground into the waggon,' 'I lifted it off the ground on which it was laid.' Figuratively, De signifies, about, concerning; in French, it is the sign of the genitive, that is of something belonging to, or sprung from, another. It is in composition only that DE appears in English, having been transferred with its compounds from the Latin."

Booth.

ercise of any power, such as the memory or attention, will tend to debilitate that faculty; what enervates, acts particularly on the nervous system.

Debt.

See HABEO, p. 17.

De-capitate, decapito, (caput, the head,) I behead, that is, cut off the head.

De-cease, decedo, (see CEDO, p. 6,) I go or fall from. Decease is a technical term in law, introduced into common life to designate one's falling off from the number of the living.

De-ceive, from decipio, (see CAPIO, p. 5,) I take wrong. -Cunning marks the disposition to practise disguise in the prosecution of a plan; deceit leads to the practice of gross falsehood, for the sake of gratifying a desire animals may be cunning, in as much as they can by contrivance and concealment seek to obtain the object of desire, but no animal is deceitful except man. A person or conduct is deceitful; an appearance is deceptive.

:

Deceit is practised only in private transactions; fraud is practised towards public bodies as well as private individuals: deceit involves the violation of moral law; fraud, that of the civil law: deceit, as a characteristic, is indefinite in magnitude; guile, marks a strong degree of moral turpitude. December, from decem, ten. See SEPTEMBER. Decency, from decet, it becomes. Propriety of form; proper formality; becoming ceremony.

"Immodest words admit of no defence,
"For want of decency is want of sense.'

Roscommon.

De-cide, from decido, (see CADO, p. 4,) signifies, to cut off, or cut short a business. To decide is an act of greater importance than to determine the nature and character of a thing is decided upon; its limits or extent are determined on. A judge decides on the law and equity of the case; the jury determine as to the guilt or innocence of the person.

Decided, is employed for persons or things; decisive, only for things: a person's aversion or attachment is decided; a sentence, a judgment, or a victory, is decisive.

De-ciduous, (see CADO, p. 4,) that which is apt or ready to fall; used of flowers and seeds of plants. De-claim, from declamo, (see CLAMO, p. 7,) signifies, literally, to cry aloud in a set form of words. Declaim and inveigh agree in the sense of using the language of displeasure against any person or thing; but declaim is used generally, inveigh particularly; public men and public measures are subjects for the declaimer, private individuals afford subjects for inveighing.

De-clare, from declaro, (see CLARUS, p. 7,) signifies, literally, to make clear or show plainly to a person. The word declare does not express any particular mode or circumstance of making known, as is implied by the words publish and proclam; we may declare publicly or privately, we publish and proclaim in a public manner only.

Discover expresses less than manifest, and manifest expresses less than declare: we discover by indirect means or signs more or less doubtful, we manifest by unquestionable marks, we declare by express words.

-Declaration. "Though wit and learning are certain and habitual perfections of the mind, yet the declaration of them, which alone brings the repute, is subject to a thousand hazards." South.

De-cline, declino, (see CLINO, p. 7,) I bend downwards. Decay expresses more than decline: by decay, things lose their perfection; by decline, they lose their vigour; and by consumption their existence.-Declension is only the variation or change of the termination of a noun, whilst it continues to signify the same thing. See CASE.

De-clivity. See ACCLIVITY.

De-compose, pono, is I place, compono, I place together, and decompose was formerly used to imply compounding