ASS • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Ass

Translators

Dictionaries

Courses

Other

Home

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/æs/ Listen

noun

Ass n.

(Zool.) A quadruped of the genus Equus (Equus asinus), smaller than the horse, and having a peculiarly harsh bray and long ears. The tame or domestic ass is patient, slow, and sure-footed, and has become the type of obstinacy and stupidity. There are several species of wild asses which are swift-footed.

A dull, heavy, stupid fellow; a dolt.

Asses' Bridge. The fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, "The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to one another." (Sportive) "A schoolboy, stammering out his Asses' Bridge."

To make an ass of one's self, to do or say something very foolish or absurd.

See images of 'Ass'

Etymology of 'Ass'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Ass" Quotes from Famous Books

... with me is this,' continued Arthur. 'It is a way of business that would throw me with the old set, and there is no safety but in keeping clear of them. I might have been saved all this if I had not been ass enough to put my neck into Gardner's noose that unlucky Derby-day. I had promised never to bet again after I married, and this is the end of it! So I think I have no right to run into temptation again, even for the chance of getting clear. ...

— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of all manner of goods for the furnishing and defence of the castle up yonder. For some four days the train of rough-bearded men in long seamen's boots toiled to and fro from bay to castle, from castle to bay, with horse and ass, waggon and cart, till men said all the spoil of Brittany and Spain, with all manner of treasures of Moorish lands were stored in the deep caverns under the chateau. And it was even said that since Le Grand Sarrasin would be lord of Guernsey, he would treat well and justly them that dwelt therein, ...

— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar

... him as I would any other young ass who forgot himself," Norgate replied indignantly. "I naturally refused to go, and the Baroness left the place ...

— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the deuce can I get hold of some more women to help work it! Scandalous, how few of the right sort there are about! And as for the Asylums Committee, if we really can't legally co-opt women to it, as our clerk says"—he looked again at a letter in his hand—"the law is an ass!—a double-dyed ass. I swear I won't visit those poor things on the women's side again. It's women's work—let them do it. The questions I have to ask are enough to make an old gamp blush. ...

— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... valor, but upon the Gruyeriens were lavished every epithet of contempt. The pitiful episode was the object of many royal witticisms. To the king who "supposed that they were of the same stuff as the Confederates," his chronicler du Bellay replied that "it was folly to disguise an ass as a charger"——"Why pay these cowards," asked the king in return, ...

— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

More quotes...