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fication of use or meaning; vowel permutation; as, get, gat, got; sing, song; hang, hung. Earle.

To clear (tress) from knots. [R.] Blount.

The earliest known inhabitants of a country; native races.

Rendered abortive or sterile; undeveloped; checked in normal development at a very early stage; as, spines are aborted branches. The eyes of the cirripeds are more or less aborted in their mature state. Owen.

In the immediate neighborhood of; in contiguity or proximity to; near, as to place; by or on (one's person). "Have you much money about you" Bulwer.

over the upper surface; over; -- opposed to below or beneath. Fowl that may fly above the earth. Gen. i. 20.

To rub or wear off; to waste or wear away by friction; as, to abrade rocks. Lyell.

The act of abrading, wearing, or rubbing off; the wearing away by friction; as, the abrasion of coins.

To tear off or asunder. [Obs.] "Till death abrupts them." Sir T. Browne.

unattended with the pain and heat characteristic of ordinary abscesses, and lasting for years without exhibiting any tendency towards healing; a chronic abscess.

Positive; clear; certain; not doubtful. [R.] I am absolute 't was very Cloten. Shak.

To swallow up; to engulf; to overwhelm; to cause to disappear as if by swallowing up; to use up; to include. "Dark oblivion soon absorbs them all." Cowper. The large cities absorb the wealth and fashion. W. Irving.

ct or process of absorbing or sucking in anything, or of being absorbed and made to disappear; as, the absorption of bodies in a whirlpool, the absorption of a smaller tribe into a larger.

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.

The act or practice of abstaining; voluntary forbearance of any action, especially the refraining from an indulgence of appetite, or from customary gratifications of animal or sensual propensities. Specifically, the practice of abstaining from intoxicating beverages, -- called also total abstinence. The abstinence from…

One of a sect who appeared in France and Spain in the 3d century.

abstract goods from a parcel, or money from a till. Von Rosen had quietly abstracted the bearing-reins from the harness. W. Black.

e from apprehension; difficult to be comprehended or understood; recondite; as, abstruse learning. Profound and abstruse topics. Milman.

or custom; offense; crime; fault; as, the abuses in the civil service. Abuse after disappeared without a struggle.. Macaulay.

In breech-loading firearms, the block behind the barrel which receives the pressure due to recoil.