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Longing eagerly for; eager; greedy. "Avid of gold, yet greedier of renown." Southey.

To abase or debase; to vilify; to depreciate. [Obs.] Want makes us know the price of what we avile. B. Jonson.

avise one's self, to consider with one's self, to reflect, to deliberate. [Obs.] Chaucer. Now therefore, if thou wilt enriched be, Avise thee well, and change thy willful mood. Spenser.

To acknowledge deliberately; to admit; to confess; to sanction. Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God. Deut. xxvi. 17.

To declare openly, as something believed to be right; to own or acknowledge frankly; as, a man avows his principles or his crimes. Which I to be the of Israel's God Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test. Milton.

Capable of being avowed, or openly acknowledged, with confidence. Donne.

An open declaration; frank acknowledgment; as, an avowal of such principles. Hume.

Openly acknowledged or declared; admitted. -- A*vow"ed*ly (, adv.

; in a state of vigilance or action. Before whom awake I stood. Milton. She still beheld, Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep. Keats. He was awake to the danger. Froude.

Now especially applied to compounds containing a two atom nitrogen group uniting two hydrocarbon radicals, as in azobenzene, azobenzoic, etc. These compounds furnish many artificial dyes. See Diazo-.

word of the Elizabethan writers, probably in ridicule of some person who pretended to a knowledge of Latin which he did not possess. Baccare! you are marvelous forward. Shak.

o walken inne by daylight. Chaucer. Behind one's back, when one is absent; without one's knowledge; as, to ridicule a person behind his back. -- Full back, Half back, Quarter back (Football), players stationed behind those in the front line. -- To be or lie on one's back, to be helpless. -- To put, or get, one's bac…

on the north side compose the granitic axis, or backbone of the country. Darwin. We have now come to the backbone of our subject. Earle.

An instrument formerly used for taking the altitude of the heavenly bodies, but now superseded by the quadrant and sextant; -- so called because the observer turned his back to the body observed.

The application of a knowledge of bacteria for their detection and identification, as in the examination of polluted water.

formerly applied especially to one who bought grain in one place and sold it in another. [Now dialectic, Eng.]

A musical wind instrument, now used chiefly in the Highlands of Scotland.

sive of extreme contempt. Twenty-five years ago the vile ejaculation, Bah! was utterly unknown to the English public. De Quincey.

Custody; keeping. [Obs.] Silly Faunus now within their bail. Spenser.

An officer in Scotland, whose office formerly corresponded to that of sheriff, but now corresponds to that of an English alderman.