Search the Dictionary

In a buzz; buzzing. [Colloq.] Dickens.

To cause to move faster; to quicken the motion of; to add to the speed of; -- opposed to retard.

Relating to acceleration; adding to velocity; quickening. Reid.

o regulate the pronunciation; esp.: (a) a mark to indicate the nature and place of the spoken accent; (b) a mark to indicate the quality of sound of the vowel marked; as, the French accents.

Acceptation; the received meaning. [Obs.] Here the word "baron" is not to be taken in that restrictive sense to which the modern acception hath confined it. Fuller. Acception of persons or faces (Eccl.), favoritism; partiality. [Obs.] Wyclif.

ct by which one power becomes party to engagements already in force between other powers. Kent.

ing." Churchill. "Accomplishments befitting a station." Thackeray. Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, And wisdom falls before exterior grace. Cowper.

ir to the same succession, or a co-legatee of the same thing, to take his share. Wharton. Kent.

eed, as in the buttercup; -- called a naked seed by the earlier botanists. [Written also akene and achænium.]

n verse, in which the first or the last letters of the lines, or certain other letters, taken in order, form a name, word, phrase, or motto.

, in the very doing; on the point of (doing). "In act to shoot." Dryden. This woman was taken . . . in the very act. John viii. 4. Act of attainder. (Law) See Attainder. -- Act of bankruptcy (Law), an act of a debtor which renders him liable to be adjudged a bankrupt. -- Act of faith. (Ch. Hist.) See Auto-da-Fé. --…

to be contained in commercial zinc; -- so called because certain of its compounds are darkened by exposure to light.

To sharpen; to make pungent; to quicken. [Obs.] "[To] acuate the blood." Harvey.

Made of adamant, or having the qualities of adamant; incapable of being broken, dissolved, or penetrated; as, adamantine bonds or chains.

To awaken; to arouse. [Obs.] A man that waketh of his sleep He may not suddenly well taken keep Upon a thing, ne seen it parfitly Till that he be adawed verily. Chaucer.

To direct speech to; to make a communication to, whether spoken or written; to apply to by words, as by a speech, petition, etc., to speak to; to accost. Are not your orders to address the senate Addison. The representatives of the nation addressed the king. Swift.

Admonitory. [R.] "An admonitorial tone." Dickens.

Taken by adoption; taken up as one's own; as, an adopted son, citizen, country, word. -- A*dopt"ed*ly, adv.

y advances. Jay. The account was made up with intent to show what advances had been made. Kent. In advance (a) In front; before. (b) Beforehand; before an equivalent is received. (c) In the state of having advanced money on account; as, A is advance to B a thousand dollars or pounds.

With deliberate purpose; purposely; by design. "Advisedly undertaken." Suckling.