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Definition 2024


absit

absit

See also: ábsit

English

Noun

absit (plural absits)

  1. A portion of fermenting dough diluted to a paste with water and then cooked.
    • 1987, Larry R. Beuchat, Food and Beverage Mycology, ISBN 0442210841, page 296:
      A portion of the fermented paste may be mixed with three parts of water and boiled, resulting in an absit.
    • 2011, Elke Arendt & ‎Fabio Dal Bello, Gluten-Free Cereal Products and Beverages, ISBN 0080557767, page 135:
      The cooking gelatinizes the starch and makes the absit viscous.
    • 2012, S P Cauvain, Breadmaking: Improving Quality, ISBN 0857095692, page 764:
      An absit is not made, and the baking is carried out on an open hotplate.
    • (Can we date this quote?) (Please provide the title of the work):
  2. (Britain) Formal permission to be away from a college for the greater part of the day or more.
    • 1868, George Charles L. Tottenham, Charlie Villars at Cambridge, page 198:
      In the evening, after some difficulty, he persuaded his tutor to give him an absit to sleep at Huntingdon that night, and drove over there after dinner in a fly with Egerton, Castleton, and Grey.
    • 1983, W. W. Grave, Fitzwilliam College Cambridge, 1869-1969, page 53:
      Another associated matter was the subject of a discussion, on one occasion only, on the effect of an absit on a student's residence if he used it to be away from Cambridge from Saturday to Monday 'as is allowed at at least one College'.
    • 1992, Eric Lionel Mascall, Saraband: The Memoirs of E.L. Mascall, ISBN 085244222X, page 56:
      An exeat was needed to be away for the night and, in theory at least, an absit for the greater part of the day.
    • 2015, William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, ISBN 1447279514:
      The following week he wrot her. 'It is a most shameful thing that he should keep me on like this...I am awfully cross because now I am not able to come home for an absit [overnight leave] on Thursday which I very much wanted to do.'

Latin

Verb

absit

  1. third-person singular present active subjunctive of absum
    • 1905, Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller, On the Firing Line, EBook edition, Project Gutenberg, published 2009:
      Bending over, Ethel turned back the cloth and thumped on the under side of the table. / "Unberufen and Absit omen," she said hastily. "Don't tempt Providence too far, Captain Frazer. …"