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Containing years; having existed or continued many years; aged. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

An improvised stockade; especially, one made of thorn bushes, etc. [Written also zareeba, and zeriba.] [Egypt] "Ah," he moralizes, "what wonderful instinct on the part of this little creature to surround itself with a zareba like the troops after Osman Digma." R. Jefferies.

rn Europe, as also the small letter (a), besides the forms in Italic, black letter, etc., are all descended from the old Latin A, which was borrowed from the Greek Alpha, of the same form; and this was made from the first letter (Aleph, and itself from the Egyptian origin. The Aleph was a consonant letter, with a guttu…

, gi-, Goth. ga-), which, as a prefix, made no essential addition to the meaning, as in aware. (5) French à (L. ad to), as in abase, achieve. (6) L. a, ab, abs, from, as in avert. (7) Greek insep. prefix a without, or privative, not, as in abyss, atheist; akin to E. un-.

One of the tiles or squares of a tessellated pavement; an abaculus.

e driven backward against the mast; -- said of the sails, also of the ship when the sails are thus driven. (b) To be suddenly checked, baffled, or discomfited. Dickens.

pposite to the mouth in a radiate animal; -- opposed to actinal. "The aboral or abactinal area." L. Agassiz.

ith mother-of-pearl, and used for ornamental purposes; the sea-ear. Several large species are found on the coast of California, clinging closely to the rocks.

A complete giving up to natural impulses; freedom from artificial constraint; careless freedom or ease.

Careless freedom or ease; abandon. [R.] Carlyle.

A West Indian palm; also the fruit of this palm, the seeds of which are used as a remedy for diseases of the chest.

as, to abate a nuisance, to abate a writ. (b) (Eng. Law) To diminish; to reduce. Legacies are liable to be abated entirely or in proportion, upon a deficiency of assets. To abate a tax, to remit it either wholly or in part.

A means of defense formed by felled trees, the ends of whose branches are sharpened and directed outwards, or against the enemy.

ontraction and omission; a letter or letters, standing for a word or phrase of which they are a part; as, Gen. for Genesis; U.S.A. for United States of America.

elmoschus- moschatus), of the East and West Indies and Northern Africa, whose musky seeds are used in perfumery and to flavor coffee; -- sometimes called musk mallow.

ienation of reason. "Occasional aberrations of intellect." Lingard. Whims, which at first are the aberrations of a single brain, pass with heat into epidemic form. I. Taylor.

To wait for; to be prepared for; to await; to watch for; as, I abide my time. "I will abide the coming of my lord." Tennyson.

coniferous trees, properly called Fir, as the balsam fir and the silver fir. The spruces are sometimes also referred to this genus.

his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren. Acts xi. 29. Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study. Bacon. The public men of England, with much of a peculiar kind of ability. Macaulay.

ng organisms from lifeless matter; such genesis as does not involve the action of living parents; spontaneous generation; -- called also abiogeny, and opposed to biogenesis. I shall call the . . . doctrine that living matter may be produced by not living matter, the hypothesis of abiogenesis. Huxley, 1870.…