Search the Dictionary

A woman who is a votary. Shak.

A votary. Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed. Milton.

Consecrated by a vow or promise; consequent on a vow; devoted; promised. Votary resolution is made equipollent to custom. Bacon.

An aquatic plant (Schollera graminea) with grassy leaves, and yellow star-shaped blossoms.

See under Starwort.

A kind of mustard (Sinapis alba) with rough-hairy foliage, a long-beaked hispid pod, and pale seeds, which yield mustard and mustard oil. The plant is also grown for forage.

A genus of climbing leguminous plants bearing long, pendulous clusters of pale bluish flowers.

Barren of wit; destitute of genius. Examiner.

An office Dr. W. Smith.

Toward the back or rear; backward. "Therewith aback she started." Chaucer.

a) The relinquishment of a right, claim, or privilege, as to mill site, etc. (b) The voluntary leaving of a person to whom one is bound by a special relation, as a wife, husband, or child; desertion.

g; the renunciation of a high office, dignity, or trust, by its holder; commonly the voluntary renunciation of sovereign power; as, abdication of the throne, government, power, authority.

Pertaining to, or formed by, the letters of the alphabet; alphabetic; hence, rudimentary. Abecedarian psalms, hymns, etc., compositions in which (like the 119th psalm in Hebrew) distinct portions or verses commence with successive letters of the alphabet. Hook.

A small periodical change of position in the stars and other heavenly bodies, due to the combined effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer; called annual aberration, when the observer's motion is that of the earth in its orbit, and dairy or diurnal aberration, when of the earth on its axis; amountin…

se by themselves and being unconnected, grammatically, with the rest of the sentence; as, Tarquinio regnante, Pythagoras venit, i. e., Tarquinius reigning, Pythagoras came.

To become checked in normal development, so as either to remain rudimentary or shrink away wholly; to become sterile.

Imperfectly formed or developed; rudimentary; sterile; as, an abortive organ, stamen, ovule, etc.

To awake; to arouse; to stir or start up; also, to shout out. [Obs.] Chaucer.

The joint or interstice between stones, to be filled with mortar. Gwilt.

To hold one's self aloof; to forbear or refrain voluntarily, and especially from an indulgence of the passions or appetites; -- with from. Not a few abstained from voting. Macaulay. Who abstains from meat that is not gaunt Shak.