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To treat revengefully; to wreak vengeance on. [Obs.] Thy judgment in avenging thine enemies. Bp. Hall.

To look at; to view; to think of. [Obs.] Chaucer.

The courts by which anything is carried off. Avoidances and drainings of water. Bacon.

The person who carries anything away, or the vessel in which things are carried away. Johnson.

To declare openly, as something believed to be right; to own or acknowledge frankly; as, a man avows his principles or his crimes. Which I to be the of Israel's God Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test. Milton.

ding; defense; vindication. [Obs.] Can my avowance of king-murdering be collected from anything here written by me Fuller.

ised; informed; cognizant; conscious; as, he was aware of the enemy's designs. Aware of nothing arduous in a task They never undertook. Cowper.

The emotion inspired by something dreadful and sublime; an undefined sense of the dreadful and the sublime; reverential fear, or solemn wonder; profound reverence. There is an awe in mortals' joy, A deep mysterious fear. Keble. To tame the pride of that power which held the Continent in awe. Macaulay. The solitude of t…

nreasonably; perverse or perversely. Or by her charms Draws him awry, enslaved. Milton. Nothing more awry from the law of God and nature than that a woman should give laws to men. Milton.

ax, is an ax for hewing timber, made heavier than the chopping ax, and with a broader and thinner blade and a shorter handle.

Situated in the axis of anything; as an embryo which lies in the axis of a seed. Gray.

ion which it is necessary to take for granted; as, "The whole is greater than a part;" "A thing can not, at the same time, be and not be."

Also used of the body only of the vertebra, which is prolonged anteriorly within the foramen of the first vertebra or atlas, so as to form the odontoid process or peg which serves as a pivot for the atlas and head to turn upon.

The outward or upper part of a thing, as opposed to the inner or lower part; as, the back of the hand, the back of the foot, the back of a hand rail. Methought Love pitying me, when he saw this, Gave me your hands, the backs and palms to kiss. Donne.

A board serving as the back part of anything, as of a wagon.

Anything like , or serving the purpose of, a backbone. The lofty mountains on the north side compose the granitic axis, or backbone of the country. Darwin. We have now come to the backbone of our subject. Earle.

Anything which brings misfortune upon one, or causes failure in an effort or enterprise; a reverse. [Scot.]

One who, or that which, backs; especially one who backs a person or thing in a contest.

Anything behind, serving as a foil; as, the statue had a background of red hangings.

The act of moving backward, or of putting or moving anything backward.