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sudden fear, terror, or wonder; to amaze; to surprise greatly, as with something unaccountable; to confound with some sudden emotion or passion. Musidorus . . . had his wits astonished with sorrow. Sidney. I, Daniel . . . was astonished at the vision. Dan. viii. 27.

The overpowering emotion excited when something unaccountable, wonderful, or dreadful is presented to the mind; an intense degree of surprise; amazement. Lest the place And my quaint habits breed astonishment. Milton.

rayer. Dryden. Astral lamp, an Argand lamp so constructed that no shadow is cast upon the table by the flattened ring-shaped reservoir in which the oil is contained. -- Astral spirits, spirits formerly supposed to live in the heavenly bodies or the aërial regions, and represented in the Middle Ages as fallen angels, s…

Adamant. [Obs.] Written in the table of athamaunt. Chaucer.

Like ink; suitable for making ink. Sulphate of iron (copperas, green vitriol) is called atramentarious, as being used in making ink.

To accommodate; to make suitable; to adapt. Arts . . . attempered to the lyre. Pope.

An attendant circumstance. [Obs.] The uncomfortable attendments of hell. Sir T. Browne.

The quality or fact of being attractable. Sir W. Jones.

Of or pertaining to Augeus, king of Elis, whose stable contained 3000 oxen, and had not been cleaned for 30 years. Hercules cleansed it in a single day.

with undisputed sway in any company or relation; a despot. The autocrat of the breakfast table. Holmes.

An automobile vehicle or mechanism; esp., a self-propelled vehicle suitable for use on a street or roadway. Automobiles are usually propelled by internal combustion engines (using volatile inflammable liquids, as gasoline or petrol, alcohol, naphtha, etc.), steam engines, or electric motors. The power of the driving mo…

Automatic stability; also, inherent stability. An aëroplane is inherently stable if it keeps in steady poise by virtue of its shape and proportions alone; it is automatically stable if it keeps in steady poise by means of self-operative mechanism.

il one's self of; capable of being used for the accomplishment of a purpose; usable; profitable; advantageous; convertible into a resource; as, an available measure; an available candidate. Struggling to redeem, as he did, the available months and days out of so many that were unavailable. Carlyle. Having no available…

An officer of the king's stables whose duty it was to provide oats for the horses. [Obs.]

The equitable and proportionate distribution of loss or expense among all interested. General average, a contribution made, by all parties concerned in a sea adventure, toward a loss occasioned by the voluntary sacrifice of the property of some of the parties in interest for the benefit of all. It is called general ave…

Capable of being averted; preventable.

Unavoidable; inevitable.

One of a superior breed of cattle from Ayrshire, Scotland. Ayrshires are notable for the quantity and quality of their milk.

Silver ores suitable for treatment by amalgamation with mercury. [Sp. Amer.]

tals, i. e., mercury, which was formerly supposed to exist in all metals, and to be extractable from them.