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High-sounding; lofty or pompous. Skelton.

With might; with full force; vigorously; violently; exceedingly. They on the hill, which were not yet come to blows, perceiving the fewness of their enemies, came down amain. Milton. That striping giant, ill-bred and scoffing, shouts amain. T. Parker.

The act or operation of compounding mercury with another metal; -- applied particularly to the process of separating gold and silver from their ores by mixing them with mercury. Ure.

Unfading, as the poetic amaranth; undying. They only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue. Cowper.

A family of plants much esteemed for their beauty, including the narcissus, jonquil, daffodil, agave, and others.

nstrument of horn used for collecting painters' colors on the stone in the process of grinding.

A circuit; a winding. Hence: Circuitous way or proceeding; quibble; circumlocution; indirect mode of speech. After many ambages, perspicuously define what this melancholy is. Burton.

Practicing or siding with both parties. All false, shuffling, and ambidextrous dealings. L'Estrange.

xpression. What have been thy answers What but dark, Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding Milton.

Tending to cause abortion.

A large pulpit or reading desk, in the early Christian churches. Gwilt.

Formerly, a kind of fragrant plant; now (Bot.), a genus of plants, including some coarse and worthless weeds, called ragweed, hogweed, etc.

place to walk in, whether in the open air, as the gallery of a cloister, or within a building.

Tending to ameliorate; producing amelioration or improvement; as, ameliorative remedies, efforts.

g for amended thought. De Quincey. We shall cheer her sorrows, and amend her blood, by wedding her to a Norman. Sir W. Scott. To amend a bill, to make some change in the details or provisions of a bill or measure while on its passage, professedly for its improvement.

In public bodies; Any alternation made or proposed to be made in a bill or motion by adding, changing, substituting, or omitting.

Imbecility; total want of understanding.

Friendly; proceeding from, or exhibiting, friendliness; after the manner of friends; peaceable; as, an amicable disposition, or arrangement. That which was most remarkable in this contest was . . . the amicable manner in which it was managed. Prideoux. Amicable action (Law.), an action commenced and prosecuted by amica…

eral sense, between individuals, societies, or nations; friendly relations; good understanding; as, a treaty of amity and commerce; the amity of the Whigs and Tories. To live on terms of amity with vice. Cowper.

e extinct, the typical forms having existed only in the Mesozoic age, when they were exceedingly numerous. They differ from the nautili in having the margins of the septa very much lobed or plaited, and the siphuncle dorsal. Also called serpent stone, snake stone, and cornu Ammonis.