DEFICIENCY. What is wanting of a ship's cargo at the time of delivery.
DEFILADE. In fortification, is the art of so disposing defensive works, on irregular or commanded sites, that the troops within them shall be covered from the direct fire of the enemy.
DEFILE. A narrow pass between two heights, which obliges a force marching through to narrow its front. This may prove disastrous if attacked, on account of the difficulty of receiving aid from the rear.
DEFILING. Filing off, marching past.
DEFINITIVE. Conclusive; decisive.
DEFLECTION. The tendency of a ship from her true course; the departure of the magnetic needle from its true bearing, when influenced by iron or the local attraction of the mass. In artillery, the deviation of a shot from the direction in which it is fired. The term is usually reserved to lateral deviations, especially those resulting from irregular causes—those constant ones due to the regular motion of rifled projectiles coming under either of the designations "constant deflection," "derivation," borrowed from the French, or "drift," from the Americans. These latter, according to the direction usually given to the rifling in the present day, all tend away to the right, though they include some subordinate curves not yet distinctly determined.
DEFORMED BASTION. One out of shape from the irregularity of its lines and angles.
DEGRADATION. Debasement and disgrace. The suspension of a petty officer from his station; and also the depriving an officer or soldier of his arms previous to his being delivered over to the civil power for execution.
DEGREE. A degree of longitude is the 1-360th part of the great equatorial circle, or any circle parallel to it. A degree of latitude is the 90th part of the quadrant, or quarter of a great meridional circle. Each degree is divided into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds, according to the sexagesimal division of the circle. Also, rank or condition.
DEKOYTS, or Dacoits. Robbers in India, and also pirates who infested the rivers between Calcutta and Burhampore, but now suppressed by the improved system of river police, and the establishment of fast rowing boats of light draught.