Word origins

• acousmaticReferring to a sound that has no visually identifiable cause.
• acridophagiA supposed locust-eating people in ancient ethnography, located by Diodorus Siculus, Jerome, Pliny the Elder, and Strabo, variously in Ethiopia, Libya, or Parthia.
• actitationFrequent action; specifically, the debating of lawsuits.
• actuoseVery active.
• aculeousResembling or pertaining to a needle.
• addimentSynonym of complement.
• addititiousAdditive; Increasing.
• adeemTo revoke (a legacy, grant, etc.) or to satisfy it by some other gift.
• ademptionIn the law of wills, the determination of what happens when property left under a will is no longer in the testator's estate when the testator dies.
• adequationEquivalence.
• adhamantClinging, as if by hooks.
• adhibitTo allow in; to admit.
• adhortTo exhort; to advise.
• adhortationadvice; exhortation
• adjumentHelp; support; that which or one who helps or supports.
• adjutorAn adjutant; a helper or assistant.
• adjutoryServing to help or assist; helpful
• adjutrixA female adjutor.
• admensurationmeasurement, especially of area
• admirabilityThat quality which produces admiration or wonder
• admixtionA mingling of different things; a mixture.
• admonitoryOf or pertaining to an admonition; serving to reprove, warn or advise.
• admonitrixA female admonitor.
• admortizationIn feudal law, the reducing of lands or tenements to mortmain.
• adnascentGrowing to or on something else.
• adorateSynonym of adore.
• adrogationA kind of adoption in Ancient Rome.
• adscriptiveAttached or annexed to the glebe or estate and transferable with it.
• adsignifyTo denote additionally.
• adulateTo flatter effusively.
• adulatoryExhibiting adulation; overly flattering.
• adustionThe act of burning, or heating to dryness; the state of being thus heated or dried.
• advertentAttentive.
• adytThe innermost sanctum of a temple, in which oracles are announced.
• aediculeA small house or room.
• aedilityThe office of an elected official responsible for festivals and the maintenance of public buildings.
• aegipanA goat-like creature resembling a satyr, sometimes portrayed as having a fish's tail.
• aeneousBronze-colored.
• aeolicOf the Anatolian region Aeolis, Aeolia.
• aequalisThe case conveying an equality with another noun, equivalent to “like” or “as” in English. This case is used in some languages like Inuktitut.
• aeviternitySynonym of eternity (“existence without end”).
• affectuouspassionate or affectionate.
• affirmantSomeone who affirms or asserts.
• affirmatumSomething that is affirmed.
• affusionThe pouring of liquid, especially as a hydrotherapy.
• aggestTo heap up.
• agglutinateUnited with glue or as with glue; cemented together.
• aggressAggression.
• agitatrixA woman who agitates; a female agitator.
• agnateA relative whose relation is traced only through male members of the family.
• agnationconsanguinity by a line of males only, as distinguished from cognation
• agnitionAcknowledgement.
• agnominationA paronomasia, or allusion of one word to another
• agricolationagriculture
• alabarchThe title of the governor or chief magistrate of the Jews in Alexandria under the Ptolemies and Roman emperors.
• albugoA leucoma.
• alceAn elk.
• alibleNourishing.
• aliptaAn official responsible for training and anointing athletes for the games.
• aliterotherwise
• alkalizateAlkaline.
• allectTo allure; to entice; to sway.
• allegoristOne who speaks in, or writes, allegories.
• alligateTo bind or tie; to unite.
• alligationThe act of tying together or attaching by some bond.
• alloquyAct of speaking to another; an address to another person.
• alluviousalluvial
• alogyunreasonableness, absurdity
• alutaceousleathery in color or texture.
• alvineOf or pertaining to the belly or intestines.
• alvinolagniasexual attraction to or paraphilia involving the stomach or belly
• alvinophiliaSynonym of alvinolagnia.
• amandationThe act of sending someone away.
• ambilevousHaving equally bad ability in both hands; clumsy; butterfingered.
• a mensa et thoroThat does not dissolve the marriage bond, but merely authorizes the husband and wife to live apart from each other.
• amissibleLiable or likely to be lost.
• amissiondeprivation; loss
• amor fatiAn attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or at least necessary; associated with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
• amotionremoval; ousting
• ampeliteAn earth abounding in pyrites, used by the Ancients Greeks as a pesticide on vines.
• amphibolousAmbiguous; doubtful or unclear.
• amphibrachA metrical foot in ancient Greek or Latin consisting of two short syllables surrounding one long one (e.g. amāta).
• amphibrachicConsisting of amphibrachs, metrical feet consisting of either a long syllable between two that are short, or an accented syllable between two that are not accented.
• amplexus reservatusSynonym of coitus reservatus.
• ampliateHaving the outer edge prominent; said of the wings of insects.
• ampliatioThe use of an epithet for effect, when that epithet is not truly applicable to the referent.
• ampliationEnlargement; amplification.
• amplificateTo amplify.
• amylumstarch
• anademA headband, especially a garland of flowers.
• anadiplosisA figure of speech in which a word or phrase used at the end of a clause or expression is repeated near the beginning of the next clause or expression.
• anatineBeing of the family Anatinae.
• ancileThe sacred shield of the Ancient Romans, said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa Pompilius. 11 copies were said to have been made, and it was the palladium of Rome.
• AncusAn Italic male given name from Latin, notably borne by Ancus Marcius, a legendary king of Rome
• angariationcoercion
• angor animiA symptom, seen mainly in patients with coronary disease, in which the patient has a strong perception that he/she is dying.
• angulousangular; having corners
• angustNarrow; strait; contracted; not spacious.
• angustatenarrowed
• anhelousShort of breath; panting or gasping