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Auditory canal (Anat.), the tube from the auditory meatus or opening of the ear to the tympanic membrane.

The act or process of augmenting, or making larger, by addition, expansion, or dilation; increase.

A kind of French stewpan with a steamtight lid. Knight.

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

in English; être and avoir, in French; avere and essere, in Italian; estar and haber, in Spanish.

A person dispatched before another person or company, to give notice of his or their approach.

A kind of glass, containing gold-colored spangles. It was produced in the first place by the accidental (par aventure) dropping of some brass filings into a pot of melted glass.

ach or of exit. "The avenues leading to the city by land." Macaulay. On every side were expanding new avenues of inquiry. Milman.

Of or pertaining to Avernus, a lake of Campania, in Italy, famous for its poisonous vapors, which ancient writers fancied were so malignant as to kill birds flying over it. It was represented by the poets to be connected with the infernal regions.

ts earthly employments avocations. Fuller. By the secular cares and avocations which accompany marriage the clergy have been furnished with skill in common life. Atterbury.

; to keep clear of; to endeavor no to meet; to shun; to abstain from; as, to avoid the company of gamesters. What need a man forestall his date of grief. And run to meet what he would most avoid Milton. He carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility. Macaulay.

Worshipful; reverential; law-abiding. [Obs.] Thrust from the company of awful men. Shak.

In Spain and Spanish America, a corporation or body of magistrates in cities and towns, corresponding to mayor and aldermen.

arly races in Mexico that inhabited the great plateau of that country at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1519. -- n.

words, in a childish way without understanding. These [words] he used to babble in all companies. Arbuthnot.

The doctrine of a modern religious pantheistical sect in Persia, which was founded, about 1844, by Mirza Ali Mohammed ibn Rabhik (1820 -- 1850), who assumed the title of Bab-ed-Din (Per., Gate of the Faith). Babism is a mixture of Mohammedan, Christian, Jewish, and Parsi elements. This doctrine forbids concubinage and…

In the companies of London tradesmen, one not yet admitted to wear the livery; a junior member. [Obs.]

tainment, or an interlude, by a number of persons, usually women. Sometimes, a scene accompanied by pantomime and dancing.

To expand, or puff out, like a balloon.

A company of persons united in any common design, especially a body of armed men. Troops of horsemen with his bands of foot. Shak.