Grāçe1, n.
n. [Fr. grâce, Pr. & Sp. gracia, Pg. graça, It. grazia, Lat. gratia, from gratus, beloved, dear, agreeable.]
Sense 1. The exercise of love, kindness, or good-will; disposition to benefit or serve another; favor bestowed or privilege conferred.
Or each, or all, may win a lady’s grace. Dryden.
To bow and sue for grace With suppliant knee. Milton.
Sense 2. The divine favor toward man; the mercy of God, as distinguished from his sovereignty or justice, and also any benefits or blessings it imparts; the undeserved kindness or forgiveness of God; divine love or pardon; a state of acceptance with God; enjoyment of the divine favor.
And if by grace, then it is no more of works. Rom. xi. 6.
My grace is sufficient for thee. 2 Cor. xii. 9.
Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Rom. v. 20.
By whom also we have access by faith, into this grace wherein we stand. Rom. v. 2.
Sense 3. Inherent excellence; any endowment or characteristic fitted to win favor or confer pleasure or benefit.
He is complete in feature and in mind, With all good grace to grace a gentleman. Shak.
Sense 4. Beauty, physical, intellectual, or moral; commonly, easy elegance of manners; perfection of form.
I have formerly given the general character of Mr. Addison’s style and manner as natural and unaffected, easy and polite, and full of those graces which a flowery imagination diffuses over writing. Blair.
Grace in women gains the affections sooner, and secures them longer, than any thing else. Hazlitt.
Sense 5. (pl.) (Myth.) Graceful and beautiful females, represented by the ancient writers as the attendants of Venus. They were commonly mentioned as three in number; namely, Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne.
The Loves delighted, and the Graces played. Prior.
Sense 6. The title of a duke or an archbishop, and formerly of the king of England. “How fares it with your Grace?” Shak.
Sense 7. A short prayer before or after meat; a blessing asked, or thanks rendered.
Sense 8. (pl.) (Mus.) Ornamental tones, either introduced by the performer in the execution, or indicated by the composer, in which case the notation signs are called grace notes.
Sense 9. (Eng. Universities.) An act, vote, or decree of the government of the institution.
Sense 10. (pl.) A play designed to promote or display grace of motion: it consists in throwing a small hoop from one player to another by means of two sticks in the hands of each.
Day of grace. (Theol.), time of probation, when an offer is made to sinners. Days of grace (Com.), the days immediately following the day when a bill or note becomes due, which days are allowed to the debtor or payer to make payment in. In Great Britain and the United States, the days of grace are three, but in other countries more, the usages of merchants being different.—Good graces, favor; friendship.—Means of grace, means of securing the divine favor, or of promoting right feeling toward God.—To say grace, to render thanks before or after meat.
Synonyms—Elegance; comeliness; charm; favor; kindness; mercy.—GRACE, MERCY. These words, though often interchanged, have each a distinctive and peculiar meaning. Grace, in the strict sense of the term, is spontaneous favor to the guilty or undeserving; mercy is kindness or compassion to the suffering or condemned. It was the grace of God that opened a way for the exercise of mercy toward men. See ELEGANCE.
O, momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God. Shak.
But infinite in pardon was my Judge, That I, who first brought death on all, am graced The source of life. Milton.
The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Shak.
