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At what time; -- used interrogatively. When shall these things be Matt. xxiv. 3.

Whereas; while [Obs.] Whenas, if they would inquire into themselves, they would find no such matter. Barrow.

or which source, origin, antecedent, premise, or the like; how; -- used interrogatively. Whence hath this man this wisdom Matt. xiii. 54. Whence and what art thou Milton.

Whencesoever. [R.]

From, or forth from, what or which place; whence. [Obs.] Spenser.

From what place soever; from what cause or source soever. Any idea, whencesoever we have it. Locke.

Whenever.

At whatever time. "Whenever that shall be." Milton.

Whence. [Obs.] Chaucer.

At what time soever; at whatever time; whenever. Mark xiv. 7.

ny or all times; every instant. [R.] "Eternal law is silently present everywhere and everywhen." Carlyle.

At some indefinite time. [R.]

(which was used before the vowel sound); as in a hunting, a building, a begging. "Jacob, when he was a dying" Heb. xi. 21. "We'll a birding together." " It was a doing." Shak. "He burst out a laughing." Macaulay. The hyphen may be used to connect a with the verbal substantive (as, a-hunting, a-building) or the words m…

Backward against the mast;-said of the sails when pressed by the wind. Totten. To be taken aback. (a) To be driven backward against the mast; -- said of the sails, also of the ship when the sails are thus driven. (b) To be suddenly checked, baffled, or discomfited. Dickens.

To relinquish all claim to; -- used when an insured person gives up to underwriters all claim to the property covered by a policy, which may remain after loss or damage by a peril insured against.

d effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer; called annual aberration, when the observer's motion is that of the earth in its orbit, and dairy or diurnal aberration, when of the earth on its axis; amounting when greatest, in the former case, to 20.4'', and in the latter, to 0.3''. Planetary aberratio…

A figure of speech employed when a speaker having begun to say a thing stops abruptly: thus, "He is a man of so much honor and candor, and of such generosity -- but I need say no more."

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

mplex object, or from other ideas which naturally accompany it; as the solidity of marble when contemplated apart from its color or figure. -- Abstract terms, those which express abstract ideas, as beauty, whiteness, roundness, without regarding any object in which they exist; or abstract terms are the names of orders…

ion one or more properties of a complex object so as to attend to others; analysis. Thus, when the mind considers the form of a tree by itself, or the color of the leaves as separate from their size or figure, the act is called abstraction. So, also, when it considers whiteness, softness, virtue, existence, as separate…