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American Dictionary of the English Language

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Condition


CONDITION, noun [Latin , to build or make, to ordain; properly, to set or fix, or to set together or in order; con and do, to give; properly, to send.]

1. State; a particular mode of being; applied to external circumstances, to the body, to the mind, and to things. We speak of a good condition or a bad condition in reference to wealth and poverty; in reference to health and sickness; in reference to a cheerful or depressed disposition of mind; and with reference to a sound or broken, perishing state of things. The word signifies a setting or fixing, and has a very general and indefinite application, coinciding nearly with state, from sto, to stand, and denotes that particular frame, form, mode or disposition, in which a thing exists, at any given time. A man is in a good condition when he is thriving. A nation, with an exhausted treasury and burthened with taxes, is not in a condition to make war. A poor man is in a humble condition Religion affords consolation to man in every condition of life. Exhortations should be adapted to the condition of the mind.

CONDITION, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king.

2. Quality; property; attribute.

It seemed to us a condition and property of divine powers and belongs to be hidden and unseen to others.

3. State of mind; temper; temperament; complexion. [See No. 1.]

4. Moral quality; virtue or vice.

[These senses however fall within the first definition.]

5. Rank, that is, state with respect to the orders or grades of society, or to property; as, persons of the best condition

6. Terms of a contract or covenant; stipulation; that is, that which is set, fixed, established or proposed. What are the conditions of the treaty?

Make our conditions with yon captive king.

He sendeth and desireth conditions of peace. Luke 14:32.

7. A clause in a bond, or other contract containing terms or a stipulation that it is to be performed, and in case of failure, the penalty of the bond is to be incurred.

8. Terms given, or provided, as the ground of something else; that which is established, or to be done, or to happen, as requisite to another act; as, I will pay a sum of money, on condition you will engage to refund it.

A condition is a clause of contingency, on the happening of which the estate granted may be defeated.

CONDITION, verb intransitive To make terms; to stipulate.

It is one thing to condition for a good office, and another to execute it.

CONDITION, verb transitive To contract; to stipulate.

It was conditioned between Saturn and Titan, that Saturn should put to death all his male children.