Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Assay   /ˈæsi/   Listen
noun
Assay  n.  
1.
Trial; attempt; essay. (Obs.) "I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the assay than it now seems at distance."
2.
Examination and determination; test; as, an assay of bread or wine. (Obs.) "This can not be, by no assay of reason."
3.
Trial by danger or by affliction; adventure; risk; hardship; state of being tried. (Obs.) "Through many hard assays which did betide."
4.
Tested purity or value. (Obs.) "With gold and pearl of rich assay."
5.
(Metallurgy) The act or process of ascertaining the proportion of a particular metal in an ore or alloy; especially, the determination of the proportion of gold or silver in bullion or coin.
6.
The alloy or metal to be assayed. Assay and essay are radically the same word; but modern usage has appropriated assay chiefly to experiments in metallurgy, and essay to intellectual and bodily efforts. See Essay. Note: Assay is used adjectively or as the first part of a compound; as, assay balance, assay furnace.
Assay master, an officer who assays or tests gold or silver coin or bullion.
Assay ton, a weight of 29,166 2/3 grams.



verb
Assay  v. t.  (past & past part. assayed; pres. part. assaying)  
1.
To try; to attempt; to apply. (Obs. or Archaic) "To-night let us assay our plot." "Soft words to his fierce passion she assayed."
2.
To affect. (Obs.) "When the heart is ill assayed."
3.
To try tasting, as food or drink. (Obs.)
4.
To subject, as an ore, alloy, or other metallic compound, to chemical or metallurgical examination, in order to determine the amount of a particular metal contained in it, or to ascertain its composition.



Assay  v. i.  To attempt, try, or endeavor. (Archaic. In this sense essay is now commonly used.) "She thrice assayed to speak."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Assay" Quotes from Famous Books



... put it here to apply it to you, for I am not worthy thereof, and I am not a marquis and I have not taken you as a beggar, nor am I so foolish, so conceited or so lacking in sense that I know not that 'tis not for me to assault nor to assay you thus, nor in like manner. God keep me from trying you thus under colour of false simulations.... And forgive me that the story speaks (in my opinion) of too great cruelty and beyond reason. And know that it never befel so, but thus the tale ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? Does he purpose to come? Will this day—will the next hour bring him? or must I again assay that corroding pain of long attent—that rude agony of rupture at the close, that mute, mortal wrench, which, in at once uprooting hope and doubt, shakes life; while the hand that does the violence cannot be caressed to pity, because ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... open on bacon and beans does fur a healthy man's cravin's. He gets so he has visions day and night of high-livin'—nice broiled steaks with plenty of fat on 'em, and 'specially cake and preserves and pies like mother used to make—fat, juicy mince pies that would assay at least eight hundred dollars a ton in raisins alone, say nothing of the baser metals. He sees the crimp around the edges made with a fork, and the picture of a leaf pricked in the middle to vent the steam, and he gets to smellin' 'em when they're pulled smokin' hot out ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... a manner of serpent, by the which men assay and prove, whether their children be bastards or no, or of lawful marriage: for if they be born in right marriage, the serpents go about them, and do them no harm, and if they be born in avoutry, the serpents bite them and envenom them. And thus ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... can we compass that?" "Why," replied Buffalmacco, "'tis certain that no one has come from India to steal thy pig: it must have been one of thy neighbours, and if thou couldst bring them together, I warrant thee, I know how to make the assay with bread and cheese, and we will find out in a trice who has had the pig." "Ay," struck in Bruno, "make thy assay with bread and cheese in the presence of these gentry hereabout, one of whom I am sure has had the pig! why, the thing would be seen through: and they would not come." "What shall we ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio


More quotes...



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org