Word Meanings - ACCRETION - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. The act of increasing by natural growth; esp. the increase of organic bodies by the internal accession of parts; organic growth. Arbuthnot. 2. The act of increasing, or the matter added, by an accession of parts externally; an extraneous

Additional info about word: ACCRETION

1. The act of increasing by natural growth; esp. the increase of organic bodies by the internal accession of parts; organic growth. Arbuthnot. 2. The act of increasing, or the matter added, by an accession of parts externally; an extraneous addition; as, an accretion of earth. A mineral . . . augments not by grown, but by accretion. Owen. To strip off all the subordinate parts of his as a later accretion. Sir G. C. Lewis. 3. Concretion; coherence of separate particles; as, the accretion of particles so as to form a solid mass. 4. A growing together of parts naturally separate, as of the fingers toes. Dana. The adhering of property to something else, by which the owner of one thing becomes possessed of a right to another; generally, gain of land by the washing up of sand or sail from the sea or a river, or by a gradual recession of the water from the usual watermark. Gain to an heir or legatee, failure of a coheir to the same succession, or a co-legatee of the same thing, to take his share. Wharton. Kent.

Related words: (words related to ACCRETION)

• ADDLE-BRAIN; ADDLE-HEAD; ADDLE-PATE
  A foolish or dull-witted fellow.
• ADDUCT
  To draw towards a common center or a middle line. Huxley.
• NATURALIST
  1. One versed in natural science; a student of natural history, esp. of the natural history of animals. 2. One who holds or maintains the doctrine of naturalism in religion. H. Bushnell.
• ORGANICALNESS
  The quality or state of being organic.
• ADDUCTION
  The action by which the parts of the body are drawn towards its (more info) 1. The act of adducing or bringing forward. An adduction of facts gathered from various quarters. I. Taylor.
• NATURAL STEEL
  Steel made by the direct refining of cast iron in a finery, or, as wootz, by a direct process from the ore.
• MATTER
  1. To be of importance; to import; to signify. It matters not how they were called. Locke. 2. To form pus or matter, as an abscess; to maturate. "Each slight sore mattereth." Sir P. Sidney.
• ADDITIVE
  Proper to be added; positive; -- opposed to subtractive.
• ADDOOM
  To adjudge. Spenser.
• ADDUCIBLE
  Capable of being adduced. Proofs innumerable, and in every imaginable manner diversified, are adducible. I. Taylor.
• ADDER'S-TONGUE
  A genus of ferns , whose seeds are produced on a spike resembling a serpent's tongue. The yellow dogtooth violet. Gray.
• ADDUCE
  To bring forward or offer, as an argument, passage, or consideration which bears on a statement or case; to cite; to allege. Reasons . . . were adduced on both sides. Macaulay. Enough could not be adduced to satisfy the purpose of illustration.
• ADDITION
  That part of arithmetic which treats of adding numbers. (more info) 1. The act of adding two or more things together; -- opposed to subtraction or diminution. "This endless addition or addibility of numbers." Locke. 2. Anything added; increase;
• ADDITIONALLY
  By way of addition.
• NATURAL
  Belonging to, to be taken in, or referred to, some system, in which the base is 1; -- said or certain functions or numbers; as, natural numbers, those commencing at 1; natural sines, cosines, etc., those taken in arcs whose radii are 1. (more info)
• INCREASINGLY
  More and more.
• ADDERWORT
  The common bistort or snakeweed .
• ADDITAMENT
  An addition, or a thing added. Fuller. My persuasion that the latter verses of the chapter were an additament of a later age. Coleridge.
• INCREASE
  The period of increasing light, or luminous phase; the waxing; -- said of the moon. Seeds, hair, nails, hedges, and herbs will grow soonest if set or cut in the increase of the moon. Bacon. Increase twist, the twixt of a rifle groove in which the
• ADDUCTOR
  A muscle which draws a limb or part of the body toward the middle line of the body, or closes extended parts of the body; -- opposed to abductor; as, the adductor of the eye, which turns the eye toward the nose. In the bivalve shells, the muscles
• HADDOCK
  A marine food fish , allied to the cod, inhabiting the northern coasts of Europe and America. It has a dark lateral line and a black spot on each side of the body, just back of the gills. Galled also haddie, and dickie. Norway haddock, a marine
• SUPERNATURALNESS
  The quality or state of being supernatural.
• SADDER
  See SADDA
• REINCREASE
  To increase again.
• SADDUCEEISM; SADDUCISM
  The tenets of the Sadducees.
• SIDESADDLE
  A saddle for women, in which the rider sits with both feet on one side of the animal mounted. Sidesaddle flower , a plant with hollow leaves and curiously shaped flowers; -- called also huntsman's cup. See Sarracenia.
• RADDE
  imp. of Read, Rede. Chaucer.
• SPADDLE
  A little spade.
• PRETERNATURALITY
  Preternaturalness. Dr. John Smith.
• WADDYWOOD
  An Australian tree ; also, its wood, used in making waddies.
• SWADDLE
  Anything used to swaddle with, as a cloth or band; a swaddling band. They put me in bed in all my swaddles. Addison.
• PADDLER
  One who, or that which, paddles.
• GADDISH
  Disposed to gad. -- Gad"dish*nes, n. "Gaddishness and folly." Abp. Leighton.
• UNSADDLE
  1. To strip of a saddle; to take the saddle from, as a horse. 2. To throw from the saddle; to unhorse.