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. [ Heb. ābaddōn destruction, abyss, fr. ābad to be lost, to perish. ] 1. The destroyer, or angel of the bottomless pit; -- the same as Apollyon and Asmodeus. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Hell; the bottomless pit. [ Poetic ] [ 1913 Webster ]

In all her gates, Abaddon rues
Thy bold attempt. Milton. [ 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. [ L. abdomen (a word of uncertain etymol.): cf. F. abdomen. ] 1. (Anat.) The belly, or that part of the body between the thorax and the pelvis. Also, the cavity of the belly, which is lined by the peritoneum, and contains the stomach, bowels, and other viscera. In man, often restricted to the part between the diaphragm and the commencement of the pelvis, the remainder being called the pelvic cavity. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Zool.) The posterior section of the body, behind the thorax, in insects, crustaceans, and other Arthropoda. [ 1913 Webster ]

n.; E. pl. Abdominals, L. pl. Abdominales. A fish of the group Abdominales. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ Cf. F. abdominal. ] 1. Of or pertaining to the abdomen; ventral; as, the abdominal regions, muscles, cavity. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Zool.) Having abdominal fins; belonging to the Abdominales; as, abdominal fishes. [ 1913 Webster ]

Abdominal ring (Anat.), a fancied ringlike opening on each side of the abdomen, external and superior to the pubes; -- called also inguinal ring. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. pl. [ NL., masc. pl. ] (Zool.) A group including the greater part of fresh-water fishes, and many marine ones, having the ventral fins under the abdomen behind the pectorals. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. pl. [ NL., neut. pl. ] (Zool.) A group of cirripeds having abdominal appendages. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. abdomen + Gr. skopei^n to examine. ] (Med.) Examination of the abdomen by means of a laparoscope to detect abdominal diseases. [ 1913 Webster + AS ]

a. Relating to the abdomen and the thorax, or chest. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Having a protuberant belly; pot-bellied. [ 1913 Webster ]

Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan,
Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan. Cowper. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. 1 distension of the stomach area due to overweight.
Syn. -- paunchiness [ WordNet 1.5 ]

‖a. [ It. ] (Mus.) Gradually accelerating the movement. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. Achillis tendo. ] (Anat.) The strong tendon formed of the united tendons of the large muscles in the calf of the leg, an inserted into the bone of the heel; -- so called from the mythological account of Achilles being held by the heel when dipped in the River Styx. [ 1913 Webster ]

adj. 1. 1 growing well in an acid medium; said of some bacteria
Syn. -- aciduric [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. 1. abnormally high acidity of the blood and other body fluids. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

adj. 1. of or pertaining to acidosis; suffering from acidosis. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. [ Gr. 'a priv. + &unr_; anything cup-shaped. See Cotyledon. ] (Bot.) A plant which has no cotyledons, as the dodder and all flowerless plants. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Having no seed lobes, as the dodder; also applied to plants which have no true seeds, as ferns, mosses, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. 1 a genus of birds comprising the mynas.
Syn. -- genus Acridotheres. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. [ Gr. 'a`kros summit + 'odoy`s, 'odo`ntos, a tooth. ] (Zool.) One of a group of lizards having the teeth immovably united to the top of the alveolar ridge. -- a. Of or pertaining to the acrodonts. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ Pref. a- + doom. ] To adjudge. [ Obs. ] Spenser. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. ad + dorsum, back: cf. F. adossé. ] (Her.) Set or turned back to back. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ Sp., prop. p. of adelantar to advance, to promote. ] A governor of a province; a commander. Prescott. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ Gr. &unr_; invisible + &unr_; a bell. ] (Zool.) Applied to sexual zooids of hydroids, that have a saclike form and do not become free; -- opposed to phanerocodonic. [ 1913 Webster ]

(1) v. inf., (2) n. [ OE. at do, northern form for to do. Cf. Affair. ] 1. To do; in doing; as, there is nothing ado. “What is here ado?” J. Newton. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Doing; trouble; difficulty; troublesome business; fuss; bustle; as, to make a great ado about trifles. [ 1913 Webster ]

With much ado, he partly kept awake. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

Let's follow to see the end of this ado. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ Sp. ] 1. An unburnt brick dried in the sun; also used as an adjective, as, an adobe house, in Texas or New Mexico. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Earth from which unburnt bricks are made. [ Western U. S. ] [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

3. (Geol.) Alluvial and playa clays of desert and arid regions, differing from ordinary clays of humid regions in containing carbonates and other soluble minerals. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

n. 1. a California herb (Fritillaria pluriflora) with pinkish purple flowers.
Syn. -- adobe lily, pink fritillary, Fritillaria pluriflora [ WordNet 1.5 +PJC ]

n. 1. a Philippine dish of marinated vegetables and meat or fish; served with rice. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. [ Fr., fr. L. adolescentia. ] The state of growing up from childhood to manhood or womanhood; youth, or the period of life between puberty and maturity, generally considered to be, in the male sex, from fourteen to twenty-one. Sometimes used with reference to the lower animals. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. The quality of being adolescent; youthfulness. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A youth. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. adolescens, p. pr. of adolescere to grow up to; ad + the inchoative olescere to grow: cf. F. adolescent. See Adult. ] Growing; advancing from childhood to maturity. [ 1913 Webster ]

Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong,
Detain their adolescent charge too long. Cowper. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ Heb. adōnāi, lit., my lord. ] A Hebrew name for God, usually translated in the Old Testament by the word “Lord”. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ The later Jews used its vowel points to fill out the tetragrammaton Yhvh, or Ihvh, “the incommunicable name, ” and in reading substituted “Adonai”. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

a. [ L. Adonēus. ] Pertaining to Adonis; Adonic. “Fair Adonean Venus.” Faber. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ F. adonique: cf. L. Adonius. ] Relating to Adonis, famed for his beauty. -- n. An Adonic verse. [ 1913 Webster ]

Adonic verse, a verse consisting of a dactyl and spondee (-- ˘ ˘ | -- --). [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ L., gr. Gr. 'A`dwnis. ] 1. (Gr. Myth.) A youth beloved by Venus for his beauty. He was killed in the chase by a wild boar. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A preëminently beautiful young man; a dandy. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. (Bot.) A genus of plants of the family Ranunculaceæ, containing the pheasant's eye (Adonis autumnalis); -- named from Adonis, whose blood was fabled to have stained the flower. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Heb. ădōnāi my Lords. ] One who maintains that points of the Hebrew word translated “Jehovah” are really the vowel points of the word “Adonai.” See Jehovist. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ Cf. F. adoniser, fr. Adonis. ] To beautify; to dandify. [ 1913 Webster ]

I employed three good hours at least in adjusting and adonozing myself. Smollett. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } At the door; of the door; as, out adoors. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

I took him in adoors. Vicar's Virgil (1630). [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Adopted; p. pr. & vb. n. Adopting. ] [ L. adoptare; ad + optare to choose, desire: cf. F. adopter. See Option. ] 1. To take by choice into relationship, as, child, heir, friend, citizen, etc.; esp. to take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To take or receive as one's own what is not so naturally; to select and take or approve; as, to adopt the view or policy of another; these resolutions were adopted. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Capable of being adopted. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Taken by adoption; taken up as one's own; as, an adopted son, citizen, country, word. -- A*dopt"ed*ly, adv. [1913 Webster]