The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dispose \Dis*pose"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Disposed; p. pr. & vb. n. Disposing.] [F. disposer; pref. dis- + poser to place. See Pose.]
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To distribute and put in place; to arrange; to set in order; as, to dispose the ships in the form of a crescent.
Who hath disposed the whole world?
--Job xxxiv. 13.All ranged in order and disposed with grace.
--Pope.The rest themselves in troops did else dispose.
--Spenser. -
To regulate; to adjust; to settle; to determine.
The knightly forms of combat to dispose.
--Dryden. -
To deal out; to assign to a use; to bestow for an object or purpose; to apply; to employ; to dispose of.
Importuned him that what he designed to bestow on her funeral, he would rather dispose among the poor.
--Evelyn. -
To give a tendency or inclination to; to adapt; to cause to turn; especially, to incline the mind of; to give a bent or propension to; to incline; to make inclined; -- usually followed by to, sometimes by for before the indirect object. Endure and conquer; Jove will soon dispose To future good our past and present woes. --Dryden. Suspicions dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, and wise men to irresolution and melancholy. --Bacon. To dispose of.
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To determine the fate of; to exercise the power of control over; to fix the condition, application, employment, etc. of; to direct or assign for a use.
Freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons.
--Locke. -
To exercise finally one's power of control over; to pass over into the control of some one else, as by selling; to alienate; to part with; to relinquish; to get rid of; as, to dispose of a house; to dispose of one's time.
More water . . . than can be disposed of.
--T. Burnet.I have disposed of her to a man of business.
--Tatler.A rural judge disposed of beauty's prize.
--Waller.Syn: To set; arrange; order; distribute; adjust; regulate; adapt; fit; incline; bestow; give.
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Usage examples of "to dispose of".
They will be in the hospital waiting for us when we are ready to dispose of them.
Perhaps we should have found a way to dispose of it in some other manner.
It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.
This danger a little startled my partner and all the ship's company, and we immediately resolved to go away to the coast of Tonquin, and so on to the coast of China - and pursuing the first design as to trade, find some way or other to dispose of the ship, and come back in some of the vessels of the country such as we could get.
I also thought of the possibility of walking into a trap of your devising, but I was already in trouble and did not see that I was so important to the balance of power that you would want to dispose of me.
That certainly discharged any obligation he might have had to the old man, so he was free to dispose of the weapon as he saw fit.
The business that in twenty-four hourstwenty nowthe manner of leaving the cabin would become apparent to himthat seemed to dispose of the possibility of being buried underground here.
He therefore came, and although the Bianchi, who then governed, were very apprehensive, still, as the head of the Guelphs, and appointed by the pope, they did not dare to oppose him, and in order to secure his friendship, they gave him authority to dispose of the city as he thought proper.