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This word is properly an adjective, but is commonly called the indefinite article. It is used before nouns of the singular number only, and signifies one, or any, but somewhat less emphatically. In such expressions as "twice an hour," "once an age," a shilling an ounce (see 2d A, 2), it has a distributive force, and is…

An it, that is, and it or if it. See An, conj. [Obs.]

A contraction for are and am not; also used for is not; -- now usually written ain't. [Colloq. & illiterate speech.]

Of each; an equal quantity; as, wine and honey, ana (or, contracted, aa), ., that is, of wine and honey, each, two ounces. An apothecary with a . . . long bill of anas. Dryden.

A prefix in words from the Greek, denoting up, upward, throughout, backward, back, again, anew.

The doctrine of the Anabaptists.

A name sometimes applied to a member of any sect holding that rebaptism is necessary for those baptized in infancy.

Relating or attributed to the Anabaptists, or their doctrines. Milton. Bp. Bull.

The doctrine, system, or practice, of Anabaptists. [R.] Thus died this imaginary king; and Anabaptistry was suppressed in Munster. Pagitt.

To rebaptize; to rechristen; also, to rename. [R.] Whitlock.

A genus of fishes, remarkable for their power of living long out of water, and of making their way on land for considerable distances, and for climbing trees; the climbing fishes.

hat of the younger Cyrus into Central Asia, described by Xenophon in his work called "The Anabasis." The anabasis of Napoleon. De Quincey.

Pertaining to anabasis; as, an anabatic fever. [Obs.]

Pertaining to anabolism; an anabolic changes, or processes, more or less constructive in their nature.

The constructive metabolism of the body, as distinguished from katabolism.

A branch of a river that reënters, or anastomoses with, the main stream; also, less properly, a branch which loses itself in sandy soil. [Australia]

Reflecting of reflected; as, an anacamptic sound (and echo).

By reflection; as, echoes are sound produced anacamptically. Hutton.

The science of reflected light, now called catoptrics.

A group of teleostean fishes destitute of spiny fin-rays, as the cod.