Search the Dictionary

The act of butting like a ram; act of using a battering-ram. [Obs.] Bacon.

To call or set as a prisoner at the bar of a court to answer to the matter charged in an indictment or complaint. Blackstone.

The whole body of jurors summoned to attend the court. To challenge the array (Law), to except to the whole panel. Cowell. Tomlins. Blount. -- Commission of array (Eng. Hist.), a commission given by the prince to officers in every county, to muster and array the inhabitants, or see them in a condition for war. Blackst…

Attentive, as a person listening. [Obs.] God speaks not the idle and unconcerned hearer, but to the vigilant and arrect. Smalridge.

To seize on and fix; to hold; to catch; as, to arrest the eyes or attention. Buckminster.

Striking; attracting attention; impressive. This most solemn and arresting occurrence. J. H. Newman.

Subject; matter; concern; distinct. [Obs.] A very great revolution that happened in this article of good breeding. Addison. This last article will hardly be believed. De Foe.

ods, knowing good and evil; you will reap as you sow; do as you are bidden. His spiritual attendants adjured him, as he loved his soul, to emancipate his brethren. Macaulay.

heir martyred blood and ashes sow. Milton. The coffins were broken open. The ashes were scattered to the winds. Macaulay.

To require, demand, claim, or expect, whether by way of remuneration or return, or as a matter of necessity; as, what price do you ask Ask me never so much dowry. Gen. xxxiv. 12. To whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. Luke xii. 48. An exigence of state asks a much longer time to conduct a desig…

d first obtained from asparagus. It is believed to aid in the disposition of nitrogenous matter throughout the plant; -- called also altheine.

To bespatter with foul reports or false and injurious charges; to tarnish in point of reputation or good name; to slander or calumniate; as, to asperse a poet or his writings; to asperse a man's character. With blackest crimes aspersed. Cowper.

Having an indefinite number of small charges scattered or strewed over the surface. Cussans.

The spreading of calumniations reports or charges which tarnish reputation, like the bespattering of a body with foul water; calumny. Every candid critic would be ashamed to cast wholesale aspersions on the entire body of professional teachers. Grote. Who would by base aspersions blot thy virtue. Dryden.…

One who kills, or attempts to kill, by surprise or secret assault; one who treacherously murders any one unprepared for defense.

An apparently violent attempt, or willful offer with force or violence, to do hurt to another; an attempt or offer to beat another, accompanied by a degree of violence, but without touching his person, as by lifting the fist, or a cane, in a threatening manner, or by striking at him, and missing him. If the blow aimed…

Trial; attempt; essay. [Obs.] Chaucer. I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the assay than it now seems at distance. Milton.

Insincere, flattering, or obsequious assent; hypocritical or pretended concurrence. Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. Ld. Chesterfield.

An obsequious; a flatterer. [R.]

Flattering; obsequious. [Obs.] -- As*sent"a*to*ri*ly, adv. [Obs.]