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Gentle or friendly reproof; counseling against a fault or error; expression of authoritative advice; friendly caution or warning.

An unburnt brick dried in the sun; also used as an adjective, as, an adobe house, in Texas or New Mexico.

To take by choice into relationship, as, child, heir, friend, citizen, etc. ; esp. to take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.

a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.

profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. Bishops and priests, . . . bearing the host, which he [James adored. Smollett.

an ardent admirer. "An adorer of truth." Clarendon. I profess myself her adorer, not her friend. Shak.

A cultivated variety of the Asiatic gram, now introduced into the United States.

A transparent or translucent variety of common feldspar, or orthoclase, which often shows pearly opalescent reflections; -- called by lapidaries moonstone.

A man who commits adultery; a married man who has sexual intercourse with a woman not his wife.

The unfaithfulness of a married person to the marriage bed; sexual intercourse by a married man with another than his wife, or voluntary sexual intercourse by a married woman with another than her husband.

The act of burning, or heating to dryness; the state of being thus heated or dried. [Obs.] Harvey.

Far on in life or time. A gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. Hawthorne. Advanced guard, a detachment of troops which precedes the march of the main body.

; as, the enemy had the advantage of a more elevated position. Give me advantage of some brief discourse. Shak. The advantages of a close alliance. Macaulay.

A female adventurer; a woman who tries to gain position by equivocal means.

cellaneous collection of notes, remarks, or selections; a commonplace book; also, commentaries or notes. These parchments are supposed to have been St. Paul's adversaria. Bp. Bull.

Expressing contrariety, opposition, or antithesis; as, an adversative conjunction (but, however, yet, etc. ); an adversative force. -- Ad*ver"sa*tive*ly, adv.

Opposition; contrariety. [Obs.] Wyclif. Adversity is not without comforts and hopes. Bacon.

Admonition; advice; warning. [Obs.] Therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement. Shak.

To take counsel; to consult; -- followed by with; as, to advise with friends.

An aerie.