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To startle from quiet; to alarm. Smale foules a great heap That had afrayed [affrayed] me out of my sleep. Chaucer.

Formerly, an officer of the king's forest, who had the care of cattle agisted, and collected the money for the same; -- hence called gisttaker, which in England is corrupted into guest-taker.

A hard, compact variety of carbonate of lime, somewhat translucent, or of banded shades of color; stalagmite. The name is used in this sense by Pliny. It is sometimes distinguished as oriental alabaster.

unday after Easter Sunday, properly Albless Sunday, because in the early church those who had been baptized on Easter eve laid aside on the following Saturday their white albs which had been put on after baptism.

real or threatened attack; a sudden attack; also, a bugle sound to give warning. "We have had an alert." Farrow. On the alert, on the lookout or watch against attack or danger; ready to act.

An herbaceous plant of the nightshade family (Physalis alkekengi) and its fruit, which is a well flavored berry, the size of a cherry, loosely inclosed in a enlarged leafy calyx; -- also called winter cherry, ground cherry, and strawberry tomato. D. C. Eaton.

The European shad (Clupea vulgaris); allice shad. See Alose.

The European shad (Clupea alosa); -- called also allice shad or allis shad. The name is sometimes applied to the American shad (Clupea sapidissima). See Shad.

untains; specif., a reillumination sometimes observed after the summits have passed into shadow, supposed to be due to a curving downward (refraction) of the light rays from the west resulting from the cooling of the air.

ge alteration in me. Milton. Appius Claudius admitted to the senate the sons of those who had been slaves; by which, and succeeding alterations, that council degenerated into a most corrupt. Swift.

A fleecy cloud formation consisting of large whitish or grayish globular cloudlets with shaded portions, often grouped in flocks or rows.

A pastoral sweetheart. To sport with Amaryllis in the shade. Milton.

arising from its admitting of more than one meaning; an equivocal word or expression. No shadow of ambiguity can rest upon the course to be pursued. I. Taylor. The words are of single signification, without any ambiguity. South.

ken on a place of prepared glass, in which the lights are represented in silver, and the shades are produced by a dark background visible through the unsilvered portions of the glass.

Pertaining to a walk. [R.] The princess of whom his majesty had an ambulatory view in his travels. Sir H. Wotton.

A variety of crystallized quartz, of a purple or bluish violet color, of different shades. It is much used as a jeweler's stone. Oriental amethyst, the violet-blue variety of transparent crystallized corundum or sapphire.

The inhabitants of the tropic, whose shadows in one part of the year are cast to the north, and in the other to the south, according as the sun is south or north of their zenith.

Ascending rivers from the sea, at certain seasons, for breeding, as the salmon, shad, etc.

Troublesome; vexatious; rigorous. [Obs.] God had provided a severe and angry education to chastise the forwardness of a young spirit. Jer. Taylor.

nsure; to express censure; -- with on or upon. I should not animadvert on him . . . if he had not used extreme severity in his judgment of the incomparable Shakespeare. Dryden.