Word origins

• 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.
• adepescentBecoming fatty.
• adepsSoft or liquid animal fat.
• adeptionAn obtaining; attainment.
• adequationEquivalence.
• AdessenarianA believer in the real presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist, but not by transubstantiation; Chiefly applied to certain followers of Martin Luther.
• ad eundemAwarded by one institution to an alumnus of another.
• adfectedHaving different powers of the unknown quantity in its various terms.
• adhamantClinging, as if by hooks.
• adhibitTo allow in; to admit.
• adhibitionThe act of adhibiting.
• adhortTo exhort; to advise.
• adhortationadvice; exhortation
• adiaphorousneither harmful nor beneficial
• adiateTo receive an inheritance.
• ad idemin agreement
• ad infinitumEndlessly; for ever; never-endingly.
• ad interimIn or for the meantime; temporarily.
• adiopocereA wax-like organic substance formed by the decay, in a wet and low-oxygen environment (anaerobic bacterial hydrolysis), of a dead body's fat.
• adipo-fat, as fat tissue or fat cells.
• adipocereA brown, fatty, waxy substance (fatty acids) that forms on dead animal tissues in response to hydrolysis.
• adipocireA mineral hydrocarbon, mainly comprising octatriacontane, found in some coal seams.
• aditusthe entrance to a cavity or channel
• adjectionAct of adjecting or adding, or the thing added.
• adjectitiousAdded; additional.
• adjugateTo yoke an animal to something
• adjumentHelp; support; that which or one who helps or supports.
• adjurationA grave warning.
• adjutorAn adjutant; a helper or assistant.
• adjutoryServing to help or assist; helpful
• adjutrixA female adjutor.
• adjuvateTo help; to further.
• adlectTo choose or elect, especially to promote someone to higher office before they have served in a lower capacity.
• adlegationA right formerly claimed by the states of the German Empire of joining their own ministers with those of the emperor in public treaties and negotiations to the common interest of the empire.
• ad libitumAs much as desired, to one's fill, without restriction.
• ad litemFor the purpose of a legal case, as in guardian ad litem.
• ad litteramTo the letter.
• ad loc.There, at the specified location
• admensurationmeasurement, especially of area
• adminicleSomething that aids or supports.
• adminicularSupplying help; auxiliary; corroborative; explanatory.
• admirabilityThat quality which produces admiration or wonder
• admittaturThe certificate of admission formerly given in some American colleges, such as Harvard.
• admixtionA mingling of different things; a mixture.
• ad modum DondersOf vision, by the Donders standards.
• admonitorAn admonisher; a monitor.
• 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.
• admoveTo move toward.
• adnascentGrowing to or on something else.
• adnateLinked or fused to a structure of a type different from itself; for example, attachment of a stamen to a petal is adnate, while attachment of a stamen to another stamen is connate.
• ad nauseamTo a nauseating or sickening degree.
• adnexedNarrowly attached to a stem or stipe.
• adoptativeadoptive
• adorateSynonym of adore.
• ad orientemFacing liturgical east, that is, in the same direction as (and thus, away from) the congregation.
• adosculationimpregnation by external contact, without intromission
• ad personamGiven exclusively to one specific person, and not transferrable to or heritable by others. (of a role, title, privilege, etc.)
• adpositionAn element that combines syntactically with a phrase and indicates how that phrase should be interpreted in the surrounding context; a preposition or postposition.
• ad quod damnumAccording to the harm (done).
• ad referendumSubject to agreement by others and finalization of details, especially an ad referendum contract.
• ad remPertinent; relevant.
• adreno-Relating to the adrenal gland.
• AdrianopolitanOf or pertaining to Adrianople (modern-day Edirne).
• Adriatic SeaA sea and arm of the Mediterranean Sea, stretching north from the Ionian Sea to Venice, separating the Italian and Balkan Peninsulas.
• adrogationA kind of adoption in Ancient Rome.
• AdrumentiansA sect of monks in Adrumetum who misinterpreted Augustine of Hippo's 195th epistle and thus developed antinomian and proto-predestinarian belifes.
• adscititiousDerived or acquired from something extrinsic; not part of the real, inherent, or essential nature of a thing.
• adscriptA feudal serf or labourer who is attached to an estate and sold or transferred with it.
• adscriptiveAttached or annexed to the glebe or estate and transferable with it.
• ad seriatumsequential
• adsignifyTo denote additionally.
• adulateTo flatter effusively.
• adulatorOne who lavishes excessive praises or flattery; one who adulates.
• adulatoriousAdulatory, flattering.
• adulatoryExhibiting adulation; overly flattering.
• adulterAn adulterer, especially a male one.
• adulterineSpurious; due to adulteration.
• adumbrantGiving a faint shadow, slight resemblance, or foreboding. By extension, faint or slight.
• adumbrateTo foreshadow vaguely.
• adumbrationThe state of being in shadow or shade; (countable) a shadow.
• adunationThe act of uniting; union.
• aduncCurved inward, hooked.
• aduncityCrookedness, curvaceousness, hookedness.
• adureTo burn, completely or slightly.
• adustionThe act of burning, or heating to dryness; the state of being thus heated or dried.
• ad valoremMeasured by or in proportion to value.
• advectitiousBrought to a place from somewhere else; imported, foreign.
• adveneTo accede or to come to; to be superadded to, to be added to something or become a part of it, though inessential.
• advenientCaused by outside forces; coming from without; external, additional.
• adventiveAccidental.
• Adventus SaxonumThe arrival en masse of Germanic settlers or invaders in Britain in the 5th–6th centuries CE.
• ad verbumOn a word-by-word basis, without rephrasing; word for word; verbatim.
• ad verecundiamAppeal to authority, argument from authority.
• advergenceThe evolution of a mimic to resemble its model more closely.
• adversantOpposed; adverse.
• adversaria(treated as plural) A collection of miscellaneous notes, remarks, or fragments of writing, typically preserved in a notebook. Originally, a book of accounts, so named from the placing of debt and credit in opposition to each other.
• adversativeExpressing opposition or difference.
• adversionA tendency or wish to avoid someone or something.