Search the Dictionary

To find out or learn for a certainty, by trial, examination, or experiment; to get to know; as, to ascertain the weight of a commodity, or the purity of a metal. He was there only for the purpose of ascertaining whether a descent on England was practicable. Macaulay.

A furnace or oven for fritting materials for glass making.

Without a material body; incorporeal. Todd.

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.

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.

orporated; as, some kinds of food assimilate more readily than others. I am a foreign material, and cannot assimilate with the church of England. J. H. Newman.

A court, the sitting or session of a court, for the trial of processes, whether civil or criminal, by a judge and jury. Blackstone. Wharton. Encyc. Brit.

ed. -- Astral spirits, spirits formerly supposed to live in the heavenly bodies or the aërial regions, and represented in the Middle Ages as fallen angels, spirits of the dead, or spirits originating in fire.

To gain or obtain possession of; to acquire. [Obs. with a material object.] Chaucer.

To find guilty; to convict; -- said esp. of a jury on trial for giving a false verdict. [Obs.] Upon sufficient proof attainted of some open act by men of his own condition. Blackstone.

To make trial or experiment of; to try; to endeavor to do or perform (some action); to assay; as, to attempt to sing; to attempt a bold flight. Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose. Longfellow.

To call to witness; to invoke. [Archaic] The sacred streams which Heaven's imperial state Attests in oaths, and fears to violate. Dryden.

Having an air of authority; positive; dictatorial; peremptory; as, an authoritative tone. The mock authoritative manner of the one, and the insipid mirth of the other. Swift. -- Au*thor"i*ta*tive*ly, adv -- Au*thor"i*ta*tive*ness, n.

Authorial. [R.] Cowper.

a broken or brecciated structure due to crushing, in contrast to those of brecciated materials brought from a distance.

A grallatorial bird, of the genus Recurvirostra; the scooper. The bill is long and bend upward toward the tip. The American species is R. Americana. [Written also avocette.]

A chief magistrate of a free imperial city or canton of Switzerland. [Obs.]

nature of, or resembling, an axis; around an axis. To take on an axial, and not an equatorial, direction. Nichol.

e carpet, resembling moquette in construction and appearance, but finer and of better material.

ught forward after an account has been made up. -- Back filling (Arch.), the mass of materials used in filling up the space between two walls, or between the inner and outer faces of a wall, or upon the haunches of an arch or vault. -- Back pressure. (Steam Engine) See under Pressure. -- Back rest, a guide attached…