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

Of or pertaining to absolutism; arbitrary; despotic; as, absolutist principles.

Pertaining to absolutism; absolutist.

Abstaining from wine. [Orig. Latin sense.] Under his special eye Abstemious I grew up and thrived amain. Milton.

The act of abstaining; a holding aloof. Jer. Taylor.

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 who abstains.

ng, or the state of being withdrawn; withdrawal. A wrongful abstraction of wealth from certain members of the community. J. S. Mill.

Pertaining to abstraction.

Obtained from plants by distillation. [Obs.] Crabb.

Containing abuse, or serving as the instrument of abuse; vituperative; reproachful; scurrilous. "An abusive lampoon." Johnson.

Pertaining to, or resembling, an abyss; bottomless; unending; profound. Geology gives one the same abysmal extent of time that astronomy does of space. Carlyle.

Of or pertaining to Abyssinia. Abyssinian gold, an alloy of 90.74 parts of copper and 8.33 parts of zink. Ure.

Of or pertaining to Acadie, or Nova Scotia. "Acadian farmers." Longfellow. -- n.

Of, pertaining to, or resembling, the family of plants of which the acanthus is the type.

Of, pertaining to, or resembling, the plant acanthus.

ctrine held by the ancient Skeptic philosophers, that human knowledge never amounts to certainty, but only to probability.

Pertaining to a race supposed to have lived in Babylonia before the Assyrian conquest. -- Ac*ca"di*an, n., Ac"cad, n. Sayce.

To enter upon an office or dignity; to attain. Edward IV., who had acceded to the throne in the year 1461. T. Warton. If Frederick had acceded to the supreme power. Morley.

pposed to retardation. A period of social improvement, or of intellectual advancement, contains within itself a principle of acceleration. I. Taylor. (Astr. & Physics.) Acceleration of the moon, the increase of the moon's mean motion in its orbit, in consequence of which its period of revolution is now shorter than in…