3. To divide or separate, as into classes, orders, kinds, or species; to classify; to assort, as specimens, letters, etc.
4. (Printing) (a) To separate (type which has been used) and return it to the proper boxes in the cases. (b) To spread (ink) evenly, as upon a roller or a table.
5. (Logic) To employ (a term) in its whole extent; to take as universal in one premise.
A term is said to be distributed when it is taken universal, so as to stand for everything it is capable of being applied to.
Whately.
Syn. -- To dispense; deal out; apportion; allot; share; assign; divide.
Dis*trib"ute, v. i. To make distribution.
Distributing to the necessity of saints.
Rom. xii. 13.
Dis*trib"u*ter (?), n. One who, or that which, distributes or deals out anything; a dispenser. Addison.
Dis*trib"u*ting, a. That distributes; dealing out.
Distributing past office, an office where the mails for a large district are collected to be assorted according to their destination and forwarded.
Dis`tri*bu"tion (?), n. [L. distributio: cf. F. distribution.] 1. The act of distributing or dispensing; the act of dividing or apportioning among several or many; apportionment; as, the distribution of an estate among heirs or children.
The phenomena of geological distribution are exactly analogous to those of geography.
A. R. Wallace.
2. Separation into parts or classes; arrangement of anything into parts; disposition; classification.