Search the Dictionary

To sanction officially; to ratify; to confirm; as, to approve the decision of a court-martial.

A prefix signifying chief, as in archbuilder, archfiend.

To make appear archaic or antique. Mahaffy.

A prefix signifying chief, arch; as, architect, archiepiscopal. In Biol. and Anat. it usually means primitive, original, ancestral; as, archipterygium, the primitive fin or wing.

Fig.: To furnish with means of defense; to prepare for resistance; to fortify, in a moral sense. Arm yourselves . . . with the same mind. 1 Pet. iv. 1. To arm a magnet, to fit it with an armature.

To please; to gratify. [Archaic] B. Jonson. Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace me are thy repositories of moldering learning. Lamb.

To draw up or write in separate articles; to particularize; to specify. [Obs.]

the same condition or manner, that it would be if. -- As it were (as if it were), a qualifying phrase used to apologize for or to relieve some expression which might be regarded as inappropriate or incongruous; in a manner. -- As now, just now. [Obs.] Chaucer. -- As swythe, as quickly as possible. [Obs.] Chaucer. -…

intain; to defend. [Obs. or Archaic] That . . . I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. Milton. I will assert it from the scandal. Jer. Taylor.

To fix, specify, select, or designate; to point out authoritatively or exactly; as, to assign a limit; to assign counsel for a prisoner; to assign a day for trial. All as the dwarf the way to her assigned. Spenser. It is not easy to assign a period more eventful. De Quincey.

hings of a like kind, nature, or quality, or which are suited to a like purpose; to classify; as, to assort goods.

ve sense; to allay, mitigate, ease, or lessen, as heat, pain, or grief; to appease or pacify, as passion or tumult; to satisfy, as appetite or desire. Refreshing winds the summer's heat assuage. Addison. To assuage the sorrows of a desolate old man Burke. The fount at which the panting mind assuages Her thirst of knowl…

To insure; to covenant to indemnify for loss, or to pay a specified sum at death. See Insure.

To stun; to astonish; to stupefy. [Obs.] Chaucer.

To stun; to stupefy. No puissant stroke his senses once astound. Fairfax.

To stupefy. [Obs.] Chaucer.

ze or take (goods or real estate) by virtue of a writ or precept to hold the same to satisfy a judgment which may be rendered in the suit. See Attachment, 4. The earl marshal attached Gloucester for high treason. Miss Yonge. Attached column (Arch.), a column engaged in a wall, so that only a part of its circumference p…

To reduce, modify, or moderate, by mixture; to temper; to regulate, as temperature. If sweet with bitter . . . were not attempered still. Trench.

To make thin or less consistent; to render less viscid or dense; to rarefy. Specifically: To subtilize, as the humors of the body, or to break them into finer parts.

The act of attenuating; the act of making thin or less dense, or of rarefying, as fluids or gases.