To DISPO'SE. v.a. [disposer, French; dispono, Latin.]

1. To employ to various purposes; to diffuse. Thus whilst she did her various pow’r dispose,
The world was free from tyrants, wars, and woes.
Prior.
2. To give; to place; to bestow. Yet see, when noble benefits shall prove
Not well dispos’d, the mind grown once corrupt,
They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly
Than ever they were fair.
Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. Of what you gathered, as most your own, you have disposed much in works of publick piety.
Spratt’s Sermons.
3. To turn to any particular end or consequence. Endure, and conquer; Jove will soon dispose,
To future good, our past and present woes.
Dryden’s Virgil.
4. To adapt; to form for any purpose. These, when the knights beheld, they ’gan dispose
Themselves to court, and each a damsel chose.
Fai. Queen. But if thee list unto the court to throng,
And there to haunt after the hoped prey,
Then must thou thee dispose another way.
Hubberd’s Tale.
5. To frame the mind; to give a proper propension; to incline. Suspicions dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, and wise men to irresolution and melancholy.
Bacon’s Essays. The memory of what they had suffered, by being without it, easily disposed them to do this.
Clarendon, b. viii. He knew the seat of Paradise,
And, as he was dispos’d, could prove it
Below the moon, or else above it.
Hudibras, p. i. cant. 1. This disposes men to believe what it teaches, to follow what it advises.
Temple. A man might do this now, if he were maliciously disposed, and had a mind to bring matters to extremity.
Dryd. Spa. Fry. This may dispose me, perhaps, for the reception of truth; but helps me not to it.
Locke. Although the frequency of prayer and fasting may be of no efficacy to dispose God to be more gracious, yet it is of great use to dispose us to be more objects of his grace.
Smalridge. If mere moralists find themselves disposed to pride, lust, intemperance, or avarice, they do not think their morality concerned to check them.
Swift.
6. To regulate; to adjust. Wak’d by the cries, th’ Athenian chief arose,
The knightly forms of combat to dispose.
Dryden’s Fables.
7. To Dispose of. To apply to any purpose; to transfer to any other person or use. All men are naturally in a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature.
Locke. Dispose of the meat with the butler, or any other crony.
Sw.
8. To Dispose of. To put into the hands of another. As she is mine, I may dispose of her;
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death.
Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. I have disposed of her to a man of business, who will let her see, that to be well dressed in good humour, and chearful in her family, are the arts and sciences of female life.
Tatler.
9. To Dispose of. To give away. A rural judge dispos’d of beauty’s prize.
Waller.
10. To Dispose of. To employ to any end. The lot is cast unto the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.
Prov. xvi. 33. They must receive instructions how to dispose of themselves when they come, which must be in the nature of laws unto them.
Bacon’s Advice to Villiers.
11. To Dispose of. To place in any condition. For the remaining doubt,
What to resolve, and how dispose of me,
Be warn’d to cast that useless care aside.
Dryden’s Fables.
12. To Dispose of. To put away by any means. They require more water than can be found, and more than can be disposed of, if it was found.
Burnet’s Th. of Earth.