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customedness; habit; habitual use. Assuetude of things hurtful doth make them lose their force to hurt. Bacon.

Want or loss of strength; debility; diminution of the vital forces.

Of a nature to astound; astonishing; amazing; as, an astounding force, statement, or fact. -- As*tound"ing*ly, adv.

protection, where criminals and debtors found shelter, and from which they could not be forcibly taken without sacrilege. So sacred was the church to some, that it had the right of an asylum or sanctuary. Ayliffe.

matic power, obtained from compressed air or the creation of a vacuum, is the propelling force. -- Atmospheric tides. See under Tide.

An open court with a porch or gallery around three or more sides; especially at the entrance of a basilica or other church. The name was extended in the Middle Ages to the open churchyard or cemetery.

nnection; as, to cut the attachments of a muscle. The human mind . . . has exhausted its forces in the endeavor to rend the supernatural from its attachment to this history. I. Taylor.

To fall upon with force; to assail, as with force and arms; to assault. "Attack their lines." Dryden.

ry to win, subdue, or overcome; as, one who attempts the virtue of a woman. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further: Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute. Shak.

te heed; the supposed power or faculty of attending. They say the tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony. Shak.

To lessen the amount, force, or value of; to make less complex; to weaken. To undersell our rivals . . . has led the manufacturer to . . . attenuate his processes, in the allotment of tasks, to an extreme point. I. Taylor. We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagerness. Sir F. Palgrave.…

Having the power or quality of attracting or drawing; as, the attractive force of bodies. Sir I. Newton.

rease in size, amount, or degree; to swell; to make bigger; as, to augment an army by reëforcements; rain augments a stream; impatience augments an evil. But their spite still serves His glory to augment. Milton.

A word which expresses with augmented force the idea or the properties of the term from which it is derived; as, dullard, one very dull. Opposed to diminutive. Gibbs.

the service of a nation at war; (rarely in sing.), a member of the allied or subsidiary force.

To be of use or advantage; to answer the purpose; to have strength, force, or efficacy sufficient to accomplish the object; as, the plea in bar must avail, that is, be sufficient to defeat the suit; this scheme will not avail; medicines will not avail to check the disease. "What signs avail " Milton. Words avail very l…

Having sufficient power, force, or efficacy, for the object; effectual; valid; as, an available plea. [Obs.] Laws human are available by consent. Hooker.

A tearing asunder; a forcible separation. The avulsion of two polished superficies. Locke.

ge or organ; as, the axial bones. Axial line (Magnetism), the line taken by the magnetic force in passing from one pole of a horseshoe magnet to the other. Faraday.

volute. -- Neutral axis (Mech.), the line of demarcation between the horizontal elastic forces of tension and compression, exerted by the fibers in any cross section of a girder. -- Optic axis of a crystal, the direction in which a ray of transmitted light suffers no double refraction. All crystals, not of the isomet…