A Dictionary of the English Language/abatement

by Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

Aba′tement. n. s. [abatement, Fr.]

l.

The act of abating or lessening.

Xenophon tells us, that the city contained about ten thousand houses, and allowing one man to every house, who could have any share in the government (the rest consisting of women, children, and servants), and making other obvious abatements, these tyrants, if they had been careful to adhere together, might have been a majority even of the people collective.Swift on the Contest of Athens and Rome.

2.

The state of being abated.

Coffee has, in common with all nuts, an oil strongly combined and entangled with earthy particles. The most noxious part of oil exhales in roasting, to the abatement of near one quarter of its weight.Arbuthnot on Aliments.

3.

The sum or quantity taken away by the act of abating.

The law of works is that law, which requires perfect obedience, without remission or abatement, so that, by that law, a man cannot be just, or justified, without an exact performance of every tittle.Locke.

4.

The cause of abating; extenuation.

As our advantages towards practicing and promoting piety and virtue were greater than those of other men; so will our excuse be less, if we neglect to make use of them. We cannnt plead in abatement of our guilt, that we were ignorant of our duty, under the prepossession of ill habits, and the bias of a wrong education.Atterbury's Sermons.

5.

[In law.] The act of the abater; as, the abatement of the heir into the land before he hath agreed with the lord. The affection or passion of the thing abated; as, abatement of the writ. Cowel.

6.

[With heralds.] An accidental mark, which being added to a coat of arms, the dignity of it is abated, by reason of some stain or dishonourable quality of the bearer. Dict.