* 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.

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

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.

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

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.

* 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.

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