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One who practices some mechanic art or craft; an artisan. [Obs.] How to build ships, and dreadful ordnance cast, Instruct the articles and reward their. Waller.

One of a sect in the primitive church, who celebrated the Lord's Supper with bread and cheese, alleging that the first oblations of men not only of the fruit of the earth, but of their flocks. [Gen. iv. 3, 4.]

One of the class of diviners among the Etruscans and Romans, who foretold events by the inspection of the entrails of victims offered on the altars of the gods.

An ancestor, or one who precedes in genealogy or degrees of kindred; a relative in the ascending line; a progenitor; -- opposed to descendant. Ayliffe.

One who ascertains.

In the early church, one who devoted himself to a solitary and contemplative life, characterized by devotion, extreme self-denial, and self-mortification; a hermit; a recluse; hence, one who practices extreme rigor and self-denial in religious things. I am far from commending those ascetics that take up their quarters…

Persons who, at certain times of the year, have no shadow at noon; -- applied to the inhabitants of the torrid zone, who have, twice a year, a vertical sun.

cribe such a book to such an author. The finest [speech] that is ascribed to Satan in the whole poem. Addison.

One of the chiefs or pontiffs of the Roman province of Asia, who had the superintendence of the public games and religious rites. Milner.

er of necessity; as, what price do you ask Ask me never so much dowry. Gen. xxxiv. 12. To whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. Luke xii. 48. An exigence of state asks a much longer time to conduct a design to maturity. Addison.

One who asks; a petitioner; an inquirer. Shak.

A small, hooded, poisonous serpent of Egypt and adjacent countries, whose bite is often fatal. It is the Naja haje. The name is also applied to other poisonous serpents, esp. to Vipera aspis of southern Europe. See Haje.

One who asperses; especially, one who vilifies another.

attering of a body with foul water; calumny. Every candid critic would be ashamed to cast wholesale aspersions on the entire body of professional teachers. Grote. Who would by base aspersions blot thy virtue. Dryden.

One who aspires; one who eagerly seeks some high position or object of attainment. In consequence of the resignations . . . the way to greatness was left clear to a new set of aspirants. Macaulay.

One who aspires.

One who, or that which, assails, attacks, or assaults; an assailer. An assailant of the church. Macaulay.

One who assails.

One who kills, or attempts to kill, by surprise or secret assault; one who treacherously murders any one unprepared for defense.

One who assaults, or violently attacks; an assailant. E. Hall.