1. To divide; to separate in portions; hence, to give in portions; to distribute; to bestow successively; —
sometimes with out.
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry?
Is. lviii. 7.
And Rome deals out her blessings and her gold.
Tickell.
The nightly mallet deals resounding blows.
Gay.
Hissing through the skies, the feathery deaths were dealt.
Dryden. 2. Specifically: To distribute, as cards, to the players at the commencement of a game; as, to deal the
cards; to deal one a jack.
Deal
(Deal), v. i.
1. To make distribution; to share out in portions, as cards to the players.
2. To do a distributing or retailing business, as distinguished from that of a manufacturer or producer; to
traffic; to trade; to do business; as, he deals in flour.
They buy and sell, they deal and traffic.
South.
This is to drive to wholesale trade, when all other petty merchants deal but for parcels.
Dr. H. More. 3. To act as an intermediary in business or any affairs; to manage; to make arrangements; — followed by
between or with.
Sometimes he that deals between man and man, raiseth his own credit with both, by pretending greater
interest than he hath in either.
Bacon. 4. To conduct one's self; to behave or act in any affair or towards any one; to treat.
If he will deal clearly and impartially, . . . he will acknowledge all this to be true.
Tillotson. 5. To contend (with); to treat by way of opposition, check, or correction; as, he has turbulent passions to
deal with.
To deal by, to treat, either well or ill; as, to deal well by servants. "Such an one deals not fairly by
his own mind." Locke. — To deal in. (a) To have to do with; to be engaged in; to practice; as, they
deal in political matters. (b) To buy and sell; to furnish, as a retailer or wholesaler; as, they deal in fish.
— To deal with. (a) To treat in any manner; to use, whether well or ill; to have to do with; specifically, to
trade with. "Dealing with witches." Shak. (b) To reprove solemnly; to expostulate with.
The deacons of his church, who, to use their own phrase, "dealt with him" on the sin of rejecting the aid
which Providence so manifestly held out.
Hawthorne.
Return . . . and I will deal well with thee.
Gen. xxxii. 9. Dealbate
(De*al"bate) v. t. [L. dealbatus, p. p. of dealbare. See Daub.] To whiten. [Obs.] Cockeram.
Dealbation
(De`al*ba"tion) n. [L. dealbatio: cf. F. déalbation.] Act of bleaching; a whitening. [Obs.]
Dealer
(Deal"er) n.
1. One who deals; one who has to do, or has concern, with others; esp., a trader, a trafficker, a shopkeeper,
a broker, or a merchant; as, a dealer in dry goods; a dealer in stocks; a retail dealer.
