n. An insoluble solid alcohol (C12H25OH) with an unbranched paraffin chain, used to make detergents, such as sodium lauryl sulfate.
Syn. -- lauryl alcohol [ WordNet 1.5 +PJC ]

n. [ For obeisance; confused with F. abaisser, E. abase. ] Obeisance. [ Obs. ] Jonson. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ Contracted from abandon. ] 1. To abandon. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Enforced the kingdom to aband. Spenser. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To banish; to expel. [ Obs. ] Mir. for Mag. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Abandoned p. pr. & vb. n. Abandoning. ] [ OF. abandoner, F. abandonner; a (L. ad) + bandon permission, authority, LL. bandum, bannum, public proclamation, interdiction, bannire to proclaim, summon: of Germanic origin; cf. Goth. bandwjan to show by signs, to designate OHG. ban proclamation. The word meant to proclaim, put under a ban, put under control; hence, as in OE., to compel, subject, or to leave in the control of another, and hence, to give up. See Ban. ] 1. To cast or drive out; to banish; to expel; to reject. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

That he might . . . abandon them from him. Udall. [ 1913 Webster ]

Being all this time abandoned from your bed. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To give up absolutely; to forsake entirely ; to renounce utterly; to relinquish all connection with or concern on; to desert, as a person to whom one owes allegiance or fidelity; to quit; to surrender. [ 1913 Webster ]

Hope was overthrown, yet could not be abandoned. I. Taylor. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Reflexively: To give (one's self) up without attempt at self-control; to yield (one's self) unrestrainedly; -- often in a bad sense. [ 1913 Webster ]

He abandoned himself . . . to his favorite vice. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. (Mar. Law) 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- To give up; yield; forego; cede; surrender; resign; abdicate; quit; relinquish; renounce; desert; forsake; leave; retire; withdraw from. -- To Abandon, Desert, Forsake. These words agree in representing a person as giving up or leaving some object, but differ as to the mode of doing it. The distinctive sense of abandon is that of giving up a thing absolutely and finally; as, to abandon one's friends, places, opinions, good or evil habits, a hopeless enterprise, a shipwrecked vessel. Abandon is more widely applicable than forsake or desert. The Latin original of desert appears to have been originally applied to the case of deserters from military service. Hence, the verb, when used of persons in the active voice, has usually or always a bad sense, implying some breach of fidelity, honor, etc., the leaving of something which the person should rightfully stand by and support; as, to desert one's colors, to desert one's post, to desert one's principles or duty. When used in the passive, the sense is not necessarily bad; as, the fields were deserted, a deserted village, deserted halls. Forsake implies the breaking off of previous habit, association, personal connection, or that the thing left had been familiar or frequented; as, to forsake old friends, to forsake the paths of rectitude, the blood forsook his cheeks. It may be used either in a good or in a bad sense. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ F. abandon. fr. abandonner. See Abandon, v. ] Abandonment; relinquishment. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ F. See Abandon. ] A complete giving up to natural impulses; freedom from artificial constraint; careless freedom or ease. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. 1. Forsaken, deserted. “Your abandoned streams.” Thomson. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Self-abandoned, or given up to vice; extremely wicked, or sinning without restraint; irreclaimably wicked ; as, an abandoned villain. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Profligate; dissolute; corrupt; vicious; depraved; reprobate; wicked; unprincipled; graceless; vile. -- Abandoned, Profligate, Reprobate. These adjectives agree in expressing the idea of great personal depravity. Profligate has reference to open and shameless immoralities, either in private life or political conduct; as, a profligate court, a profligate ministry. Abandoned is stronger, and has reference to the searing of conscience and hardening of heart produced by a man's giving himself wholly up to iniquity; as, a man of abandoned character. Reprobate describes the condition of one who has become insensible to reproof, and who is morally abandoned and lost beyond hope of recovery. [ 1913 Webster ]

God gave them over to a reprobate mind. Rom. i. 28. [ 1913 Webster ]

adv. Unrestrainedly. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Law) One to whom anything is legally abandoned. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who abandons. Beau. & Fl. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Cf. F. abandonnement. ] 1. The act of abandoning, or the state of being abandoned; total desertion; relinquishment. [ 1913 Webster ]

The abandonment of the independence of Europe. Burke. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Mar. Law) The relinquishment by the insured to the underwriters of what may remain of the property insured after a loss or damage by a peril insured against. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. (Com. Law) (a) The relinquishment of a right, claim, or privilege, as to mill site, etc. (b) The voluntary leaving of a person to whom one is bound by a special relation, as a wife, husband, or child; desertion. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. Careless freedom or ease; abandon. [ R. ] Carlyle. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ LL. See Abandon. ] (Law) Anything forfeited or confiscated. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. See Abnet. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ Name given by the negroes in the island of St. Thomas. ] A West Indian palm; also the fruit of this palm, the seeds of which are used as a remedy for diseases of the chest. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } n. [ LL. abannatio; ad + LL. bannire to banish. ] (Old Law) Banishment. [ Obs. ] Bailey. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ From Abdera, a town in Thrace, of which place Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher, was a native. ] Given to laughter; inclined to foolish or incessant merriment. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. abdicans, p. pr. of abdicare. ] Abdicating; renouncing; -- followed by of. [ 1913 Webster ]

Monks abdicant of their orders. Whitlock. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who abdicates. Smart. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. Behavior. [ Obs. ] Blackstone. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. abecedarius. A word from the first four letters of the alphabet. ] 1. One who is learning the alphabet; hence, a tyro. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. One engaged in teaching the alphabet. Wood. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } a. Pertaining to, or formed by, the letters of the alphabet; alphabetic; hence, rudimentary. [ 1913 Webster ]

Abecedarian psalms,
hymns, etc., compositions in which (like the 119th psalm in Hebrew) distinct portions or verses commence with successive letters of the alphabet. Hook. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } n. (Eccl. Hist.) One of a sect in Africa (4th century), mentioned by St. Augustine, who states that they married, but lived in continence, after the manner, as they pretended, of Abel. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } n. the state or condition of being aberrant; a wandering from the right way; deviation from truth, rectitude, etc.
Syn. -- aberrance, aberration, deviance [ 1913 Webster WordNet 1.5 ]

Aberrancy of curvature (Geom.), the deviation of a curve from a circular form. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. an aberrant state or condition. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. aberrans, -rantis, p. pr. of aberrare. See Aberr. ] 1. Wandering; straying from the right way. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Biol.) Deviating from the ordinary or natural type; exceptional; abnormal. [ 1913 Webster ]

The more aberrant any form is, the greater must have been the number of connecting forms which, on my theory, have been exterminated. Darwin. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OF. abeance expectation, longing; a (L. ad) + baer, beer, to gape, to look with open mouth, to expect, F. bayer, LL. badare to gape. ] 1. (Law) Expectancy; condition of being undetermined. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ When there is no person in existence in whom an inheritance (or a dignity) can vest, it is said to be in abeyance, that is, in expectation; the law considering it as always potentially existing, and ready to vest whenever a proper owner appears. Blackstone. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Suspension; temporary suppression. [ 1913 Webster ]

Keeping the sympathies of love and admiration in a dormant state, or state of abeyance. De Quincey. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. Abeyance. [ R. ] Hawthorne. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Being in a state of abeyance. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. The state of abiding; abode; continuance; compliance (with). [ 1913 Webster ]

The Christians had no longer abidance in the holy hill of Palestine. Fuller. [ 1913 Webster ]

A judicious abidance by rules. Helps. [ 1913 Webster ]

prop. n. (Geography) The capital city of Cote d'Ivoire. Population (2000) = 106, 786. [ PJC ]

n. (Med.) A medicine that diminishes or alleviates irritation. [ 1913 Webster + AS ]

adj. (Med.) Diminishing or alleviating irritation Stedman. [ AS ]

n. [ See Bode. ] An omen; a portending. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A material used for grinding, as emery, sand, powdered glass, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

it>or n. [ Possibly in allusion to the parable of the beggar Lazarus in Luke xvi. Murray (New Eng. Dict. ). ] One of a set of vagabonds who formerly roamed through England, feigning lunacy for the sake of obtaining alms. Nares. [ 1913 Webster ]

To sham Abraham, to feign sickness. Goldsmith. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. (Zool.) Abranchiate. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. pl. [ NL., from Gr. 'a priv. + &unr_;, pl., the gills of fishes. ] (Zool.) A group of annelids, so called because the species composing it have no special organs of respiration. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. (Zool.) Without gills. [ 1913 Webster ]

adj. 1. having no gills; -- same as abranchiate. branchiate
Syn. -- abranchiate, abranchial, gill-less [ WordNet 1.5 ]

a. [ LL. absentaneus. See absent ] Pertaining to absence. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. Of the nature of wormwood. “Absinthian bitterness.” T. Randolph. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. ab + sonans, p. pr. of sonare to sound. ] Discordant; contrary; -- opposed to consonant. “Absonant to nature.” Quarles. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OE. (h)abundaunce, abundance, F. abondance, L. abundantia, fr. abundare. See Abound. ] An overflowing fullness; ample sufficiency; great plenty; profusion; copious supply; superfluity; wealth: -- strictly applicable to quantity only, but sometimes used of number. [ 1913 Webster ]

It is lamentable to remember what abundance of noble blood hath been shed with small benefit to the Christian state. Raleigh. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Exuberance; plenteousness; plenty; copiousness; overflow; riches; affluence; wealth. -- Abundance, Plenty, Exuberance. These words rise upon each other in expressing the idea of fullness. Plenty denotes a sufficiency to supply every want; as, plenty of food, plenty of money, etc. Abundance express more, and gives the idea of superfluity or excess; as, abundance of riches, an abundance of wit and humor; often, however, it only denotes plenty in a high degree. Exuberance rises still higher, and implies a bursting forth on every side, producing great superfluity or redundance; as, an exuberance of mirth, an exuberance of animal spirits, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ OE. (h)abundant, aboundant, F. abondant, fr. L. abudans, p. pr. of abundare. See Abound. ] Fully sufficient; plentiful; in copious supply; -- followed by in, rarely by with. “Abundant in goodness and truth.” Exod. xxxiv. 6. [ 1913 Webster ]

Abundant number (Math.), a number, the sum of whose aliquot parts exceeds the number itself. Thus, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, the aliquot parts of 12, make the number 16. This is opposed to a deficient number, as 14, whose aliquot parts are 1, 2, 7, the sum of which is 10; and to a perfect number, which is equal to the sum of its aliquot parts, as 6, whose aliquot parts are 1, 2., 3. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Ample; plentiful; copious; plenteous; exuberant; overflowing; rich; teeming; profuse; bountiful; liberal. See Ample. [ 1913 Webster ]

adv. In a sufficient degree; fully; amply; plentifully; in large measure. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Of or pertaining to Abyssinia. [ 1913 Webster ]

Abyssinian gold, an alloy of 90.74 parts of copper and 8.33 parts of zink. Ure. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. A native of Abyssinia. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A member of the Abyssinian Church. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A member of an academy, university, or college. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ F. académicien. See Academy. ] 1. A member of an academy, or society for promoting science, art, or literature, as of the French Academy, or the Royal Academy of arts. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A collegian. [ R. ] Chesterfield. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. the position or state of being a member of an honorary academy. [ WordNet 1.5 ]