Search the Dictionary

To figure or variegate. [Obs.] Spenser.

vantage of; to be of service to; to profit; to benefit; to help; as, artifices will not avail the sinner in the day of judgment. O, what avails me now that honor high ! Milton.

The quality of being available; availableness.

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

Competent power; validity; efficacy; as, the availableness of a title. [Obs.]

In an available manner; profitably; advantageously; efficaciously.

Profit; advantage. [Obs.]

The movable front to a helmet; the ventail.

A bucket or scoop used in bailing water out of a boat. [Obs.] The bail of a canoe . . . made of a human skull. Capt. Cook.

Special bail in court to abide the judgment. Bouvier.

Having the right or privilege of being admitted to bail, upon bond with sureties; -- used of persons. "He's bailable, I'm sure." Ford.

The person to whom goods are committed in trust, and who has a temporary possession and a qualified property in them, for the purposes of the trust. Blackstone.

See Bailor.

A prison or court of justice; -- used in certain proper names; as, the Old Bailey in London; the New Bailey in Manchester. [Eng.] Oxf. Gloss.

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

r castle; one to whom power Abbott. Lausanne is under the canton of Berne, governed by a bailiff sent every three years from the senate. Addison.

See Bailiwick. [Obs.]

The precincts within which a bailiff has jurisdiction; the limits of a bailiff's authority.

Bailiff. [Obs.]

The action of bailing a person accused. Bailment . . . is the saving or delivery of a man out of prison before he hath satisfied the law. Dalton.