DELIRAMENT. s. (deliramentum, Lat.) A doting or foolish fancy.

To DELIRATE. v. n. (deliro, Latin.) To dote; to rave; to talk or act idly.

DELIRATION. s. (deliratio, Latin.) Dotage; folly; madness.

DELIRIOUS. a. (delirius, Latin.) Lightheaded; raving; doting (Swift).

DELIRIUM. (delirium, from deliro, to rave.) A febrile symptom, consisting in the person's acting or talking unreasonably. It is to be carefully distinguished from an alienation of the mind, without fever.

To DELIVER. v. a. (delivrer, French.) 1. To set free; to release (Prior). 2. To save; to rescue (Shakspeare). 3. To surrender; to put into one's hands (Samuel). 4. To give; to offer; to present (Dryden). 5. To cast away; to throw off (Pope). 6. To disburden a woman of a child (Peacham). 7. To speak; to tell; to relate; to utter (Swift).

To DELIVER over. v. a. 1. To put into another's hands (Shakspeare). 2. To give from hand to hand (Dryden).

To DELIVER up. v. a. To surrender (Shakspeare).

DELIVERANCE. s. (delivrance, French.) 1. The act of freeing from captivity, slavery, or any oppression; rescue (Dryden). 2. The act of delivering a thing to another. 3. The act of bringing children (Shakspeare) 4. The act of speaking; utterance (Shakspeare).

DELIVERER. s. (from deliver.) 1. A saver; a rescuer; a preserver (Bacon). 2. A relater; one that communicates something by speech or writing (Boyle).

DELIVERY. s. (from the verb.) 1. The act of delivering, or giving. 2. Release; rescue; saving (Shakspeare). 3. A surrender; act of giving up (Clarendon). 4. Utterance; pronunciation; speech (Hooker). 5. Use of the limbs; activity (Wotton). 6. Childbirth. See MIDWIFERY.

DELL. s. (from dal, Dutch.) A pit; a hole in the ground (Tickel).

DELOS, an island of the Archipelago, now called Dili. There are abundance of fine ruins, supposed to be of the Temples of Diana and Apollo, whose birth-place it is said to be. It is six miles in circumference, but it is now quite destitute of inhabitants. Lat. 37. 30 N. Lon. 25. 59 E.

So very sacred was the island of Delos held by the ancients, that no hostilities were practised there, even by the nations that were at war with one another, when they happened to meet in this place. It was called Delos from , because it suddenly made its appearance on the surface of the sea, by the power of Nep tune. (See APOLLO.) One of the altars of Apollo, in the island, was reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. It had been erected, according to mythologists, by Apollo when only four years old, and made with the horus of goats, killed by Diana on mount Cynthus. It was unlawful for a man to die, or for a child to be born there; and an edict was issued,

which commanded all persons labouring under any mortal or dangerous disease to be instantly removed to the adjacent island called Rhane. DELPH. See DELFT.

DELPHIN, in literary history, a name given to the commentators on the ancieur Latin authers, who were employed by order of Louis XIV. of France, for the benefit of the prince, under the care and direction of M. de Montausier his governor, Bossuet and Huet his preceptors. They were thirty-nine in number.

DELPHINIA, in antiquity, feasts celebrated by the inhabitants of Egina, in honour of Apollo, surnamed Delphinius.

DELPHINIUM. Larkspur. In botany, a genus of the class polyandria, order digynia. Calyxless; petals five; nectary closen, elongated behind into a horn; siliques three or one. Fourteen species; of which a few possess only one capsule, but the majority three. These are chiefly found wild in the south of Europe : three or four of which are cultivated in our gardens. Two or three species in this genus are perennial. Those chiefly worthy of no

tice are,

1. D. consolida. Common larkspur; found in our own fields, with a one-leafed nectary, and subdivided stem: the petals are easily doubled by propagation, and are in colour usually blue, red, pink, or violet. This plant is called in the dispensatories CALCITRAFFA, and CONSOLIDA REGALIS, which see.

2. D. pereginum; with a two-leaved nectary; corol nine-petalled; leaves many-parted, obtuse. A native of the south of Europe.

3. D. staphisagria. Staves-acre; louse wort; nectary four-leaved, shorter than the petals; leaves palmate, with obtuse lobes. Indige nous also to the south of Europe. The seeds are still an article in some pharmacopacias; and their supposed use will be found under the officinal name STAPHISAGRIA, which

see.

DELPHINUS, in astronomy, the Dolphin, an old northern constellation. It consists of eighteen stars of the first six magnitudes, viz. 0.0.6.0.2.10.

DELPHINUS, in zoology, order cete. Teeth in both jaws; bony. The species are the five i. e. following.

1. D. phocæna. Porpoise, or porpus (le pore poisson.) Sea-hog. Body subconie; back broad; snout bluntish. Colour of the body blueish, black above; white beneath; head obtuse, eyes small, the entrance to the ear placed behind them, and between them a semilunar fistula; teeth small, acute; in each jaw forty-six; orifice of the penis near the navel linear; anus a little two-lobed, between that and the tail. In the times of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, reckoned a delicacy and a royal dish. Inhabits the European and Baltic occans; and is found at times on all the coasts of our own country, following greedily the track of the migratory fishes, as mackerel, herrings, and salmon; tumbling over and darting