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Compensation for a loss or injury; recompense; reparation. [Now const. with sing. verb.] "An honorable amends." Addison. Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends. Shak.

ivility; suavity; gentleness. A sweetness and amenity of temper. Buckle. This climate has not seduced by its amenities. W. Howitt.

A kind of divorce which does not dissolve the marriage bond, but merely authorizes a separate life of the husband and wife. Abbott.

To punish by a pecuniary penalty, the amount of which is not fixed by law, but left to the discretion of the court; as, the amerced the criminal in the sum on the hundred dollars.

A native of America; -- originally applied to the aboriginal inhabitants, but now applied to the descendants of Europeans born in America, and especially to the citizens of the United States. The name American must always exalt the pride of patriotism. Washington.

A group of insects which do not undergo any metamorphosis. [Written also Ametabolia.]

Not undergoing any metamorphosis; as, ametabolic insects.

A purple color in a nobleman's escutcheon, or coat of arms.

The Amharic language (now the chief language of Abyssinia).

A genus of fresh-water ganoid fishes, exclusively confined to North America; called bowfin in Lake Champlain, dogfish in Lake Erie, and mudfish in South Carolina, etc. See Bowfin.

A square of white linen worn at first on the head, but now about the neck and shoulders, by priests of the Roman Catholic Church while saying Mass.

Containing, or derived from, amidogen. Amido acid, an acid in which a portion of the nonacid hydrogen has been replaced by the amido group. The amido acids are both basic and acid. -- Amido group, amidogen, NH2.

A compound radical, NH2, not yet obtained in a separate state, which may be regarded as ammonia from the molecule of which one of its hydrogen atoms has been removed; -- called also the amido group, and in composition represented by the form amido.

roperly; wrongly; ill. What error drives our eyes and ears amiss Shak. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss. James iv. 3. To take (an act, thing) amiss, to impute a wrong motive to (an act or thing); to take offense at' to take unkindly; as, you must not take these questions amiss.

The quality of being amissible; possibility of being lost. [R.] Notions of popular rights and the amissibility of sovereign power for misconduct were alternately broached by the two great religious parties of Europe. Hallam.

owed by the division of the cytoplasm; direct cell division; -- opposed to mitosis. It is not the usual mode of division, and is believed by many to occur chiefly in highly specialized cells which are incapable of long-continued multiplication, in transitory structures, and in those in early stages of degeneration.…

Having no determinate form; of irregular; shapeless. Kirwan.

Elevated, -- as a toe, when raised so high that the tip does not touch the ground.

Of a mixed nature; partaking of two natures. Not in free and common socage, but in this amphibious subordinate class of villein socage. Blackstone.

Capable of two meanings. An amphibolous sentence is one that is capable of two meanings, not from the double sense of any of the words, but from its admitting of a double construction; e. g., "The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose." Whately.