Search the Dictionary

A collection of pus or purulent matter in any tissue or organ of the body, the result of a morbid process. Cold abscess, an abscess of slow formation, unattended with the pain and heat characteristic of ordinary abscesses, and lasting for years without exhibiting any tendency towards healing; a chronic abscess.…

ss; as, an absconding debtor. That very homesickness which, in regular armies, drives so many recruits to abscond. Macaulay.

tance as to prevent intercourse; -- used with the reflexive pronoun. If after due summons any member absents himself, he is to be fined. Addison.

Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional; as, absolute authority, monarchy, sovereignty, an absolute promise or command; absolute power; an absolute monarch.

To take up by cohesive, chemical, or any molecular action, as when charcoal absorbs gases. So heat, light, and electricity are absorbed or taken up in the substances into which they pass. Nichol. p. 8

Anything which absorbs. The ocean, itself a bad absorbent of heat. Darwin.

The act 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.

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…

Considered apart from any application to a particular object; separated from matter; exiting in the mind only; as, abstract truth, abstract numbers. Hence: ideal; abstruse; difficult.

ion. So, also, when it considers whiteness, softness, virtue, existence, as separate from any particular objects.

A genus of malvaceous plants of many species, found in the torrid and temperate zones of both continents; -- called also Indian mallow.

A bottomless or unfathomed depth, gulf, or chasm; hence, any deep, immeasurable, and, specifically, hell, or the bottomless pit. Ye powers and spirits of this nethermost abyss. Milton. The throne is darkness, in the abyss of light. Dryden.

The mahogany tree; also, its timber.

The group of Arachnida which includes the mites and ticks. Many species are parasitic, and cause diseases like the itch and mange.

A genus including many species of small mites.

otion exceeds that of the sun, in consequence of which they daily come to the meridian of any place about three minutes fifty-six seconds of solar time earlier than on the day preceding. -- Acceleration of the planets, the increasing velocity of their motion, in proceeding from the apogee to the perigee of their orbit…

Accompanying, as a subordinate; additional; accessory; esp., uniting in, or contributing to, a crime, but not as chief actor. See Accessory. To both their deaths thou shalt be accessary. Shak. Amongst many secondary and accessary causes that support monarchy, these are not of least reckoning. Milton.…

Accompanying as a subordinate; aiding in a secondary way; additional; connected as an incident or subordinate to a principal; contributing or contributory; said of persons and things, and, when of persons, usually in a bad sense; as, he was accessory to the riot; accessory sounds in music.

The rudiments of any subject. Lowell.

Any accidental property, fact, or relation; an accidental or nonessential; as, beauty is an accident. This accident, as I call it, of Athens being situated some miles from the sea. J. P. Mahaffy.