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Causing waste; also, undergoing waste; diminishing; as, a wasting disease; a wasting fortune. Wasting palsy (Med.), progressive muscular atrophy. See under Progressive.

A religious meeting held in the closing hours of the year.

mmit from the opposite sides of which rain waters flow to different streams; a line separating the drainage districts of two streams or coasts; a divide.

Knowingly. [Obs.] Spenser.

The distance, reckoned toward the west, between the two meridians passing through the extremities of a course, or portion of a ship's path; the departure of a course which lies to the west of north.

and to Brazil, and M. littoralis, common from Virginia to Texas; -- called also silver whiting, and surf whiting.

A young whiting. [Prov. Eng.]

Knowledge. [Obs.] "Withouten witing of any other wight." Chaucer.

Knowingly; with knowledge; by design.

The act or employment of cutting wood or timber.

for the purpose of recording the ideas which characters and words express, or of communicating them to others by visible signs.

Sailing for pleasure in a yacht.

The Florida and West Indian red snapper (Lutianus aya); also, sometimes, one of certain other allied species, as L. caxis.

shortened form of the preposition an (which was used before the vowel sound); as in a hunting, a building, a begging. "Jacob, when he was a dying" Heb. xi. 21. "We'll a birding together." " It was a doing." Shak. "He burst out a laughing." Macaulay. The hyphen may be used to connect a with the verbal substantive (as,…

Astride; with a part on each side; -- used specif. in designating the position of an army with the wings separated by some line of demarcation, as a river or road.

m various sources. (1) It frequently signifies on or in (from an, a forms of AS. on), denoting a state, as in afoot, on foot, abed, amiss, asleep, aground, aloft, away (AS. onweg), and analogically, ablaze, atremble, etc. (2) AS. of off, from, as in adown (AS. ofdüne off the dun or hill). (3) AS. a- (Goth. us-, ur-, Ge…

On tiptoe; eagerly expecting. We all feel a-tiptoe with hope and confidence. F. Harrison.

A prefix in many words of Latin origin. It signifies from, away , separating, or departure, as in abduct, abstract, abscond. See A- (6).

The act of abacinating. [R.]

One who uses an abacus in casting accounts; a calculator.