DATE, n.

1. That addition to a writing which specifies the year, month and day when it was given or executed. In letters, it notes the time when they are written or sent; in deeds, contracts, wills and other papers, it specifies the time of execution, and usually the time from which they are to take effect and operate on the rights of persons. To the date is usually added the name of the place where a writing is executed, and this is sometimes included in the term date.
2. The time when any event happened, when any thing was transacted, or when any thing is to be done; as, the date of a battle; the date of Cesar's arrival in Britain.
3. End; conclusion. [Unusual.] What time would spare, from steel receives its date. – Pope.
4. Duration; continuance; as, ages of endless date. – Milton.

The fruit of the great palm-tree, or date-tree, the Phœnix dactylifera. This fruit is somewhat in the shape of an acorn, composed of a thin light glossy membrane, somewhat pellucid and yellowish, containing a soft pulpy fruit, firm and sweet, esculent and wholesome, and in this is inclosed a hard kernel. – Encyc.

1. To reckon.
2. To begin; to have origin. The Batavian republic dates from the successes of the French arms. – E. Everett.

1. To write or note the time when a letter is written, or a writing executed; to express, in an instrument, the year, month and day of its execution, and usually the place; as, to date a letter, a bond, a deed, or a charter.
2. To note or fix the time of an event or transaction. Historians date the fulfillment of a prophecy at different periods.
3. To note the time when something begins; as, to date a disease or a calamity from a certain cause.

1. The fruit of the date palm; also, the date palm itself.
   
   

   * This fruit is somewhat in the shape of an olive, containing a soft pulp, sweet, esculent, and wholesome, and inclosing a hard kernel.

   Date palm, or Date tree (Bot.), the genus of palms which bear dates, of which common species is Phœnix dactylifera. See Illust. -- Date plum (Bot.), the fruit of several species of Diospyros, including the American and Japanese persimmons, and the European lotus (D. Lotus). -- Date shell, or Date fish (Zoöl.), a bivalve shell, or its inhabitant, of the genus Pholas, and allied genera. See Pholas.

2. That addition to a writing, inscription, coin, etc., which specifies the time (as day, month, and year) when the writing or inscription was given, or executed, or made; as, the date of a letter, of a will, of a deed, of a coin. etc.
   
   

   And bonds without a date, they say, are void. Dryden.

3. To note the time of writing or executing] to express in an instrument the time of its execution; as, to date a letter, a bond, a deed, or a charter.
4. To have beginning; to begin; to be dated or reckoned; -- with from.
   
   

   The Batavian republic dates from the successes of the French arms. E. Everett.

5. The point of time at which a transaction or event takes place, or is appointed to take place; a given point of time; epoch; as, the date of a battle.
   
   

   He at once,
   Down the long series of eventful time,
   So fixed the dates of being, so disposed
   To every living soul of every kind
   The field of motion, and the hour of rest. Akenside.

6. To note or fix the time of, as of an event; to give the date of; as, to date the building of the pyramids.
   
   

   * We may say dated at or from a place.

   The letter is dated at Philadephia. G. T. Curtis.

   You will be suprised, I don't question, to find among your correspondencies in foreign parts, a letter dated from Blois. Addison.

   In the countries of his jornal seems to have been written; parts of it are dated from them. M. Arnold.

7. Assigned end; conclusion.
   
   
   [R.]

   What Time would spare, from Steel receives its date. Pope.

8. Given or assigned length of life; dyration.
   
   
   [Obs.]

   Good luck prolonged hath thy date. Spenser.

   Through his life's whole date. Chapman.

   To bear date, to have the date named on the face of it; -- said of a writing.