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Assay   /ˈæsi/   Listen
noun
Assay  n.  
1.
Trial; attempt; essay. (Obs.) "I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the assay than it now seems at distance."
2.
Examination and determination; test; as, an assay of bread or wine. (Obs.) "This can not be, by no assay of reason."
3.
Trial by danger or by affliction; adventure; risk; hardship; state of being tried. (Obs.) "Through many hard assays which did betide."
4.
Tested purity or value. (Obs.) "With gold and pearl of rich assay."
5.
(Metallurgy) The act or process of ascertaining the proportion of a particular metal in an ore or alloy; especially, the determination of the proportion of gold or silver in bullion or coin.
6.
The alloy or metal to be assayed. Assay and essay are radically the same word; but modern usage has appropriated assay chiefly to experiments in metallurgy, and essay to intellectual and bodily efforts. See Essay. Note: Assay is used adjectively or as the first part of a compound; as, assay balance, assay furnace.
Assay master, an officer who assays or tests gold or silver coin or bullion.
Assay ton, a weight of 29,166 2/3 grams.



verb
Assay  v. t.  (past & past part. assayed; pres. part. assaying)  
1.
To try; to attempt; to apply. (Obs. or Archaic) "To-night let us assay our plot." "Soft words to his fierce passion she assayed."
2.
To affect. (Obs.) "When the heart is ill assayed."
3.
To try tasting, as food or drink. (Obs.)
4.
To subject, as an ore, alloy, or other metallic compound, to chemical or metallurgical examination, in order to determine the amount of a particular metal contained in it, or to ascertain its composition.



Assay  v. i.  To attempt, try, or endeavor. (Archaic. In this sense essay is now commonly used.) "She thrice assayed to speak."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Assay" Quotes from Famous Books



... withal, you come down to the seamy wood, and Art is gone. Nay, but your Morelli, your Crowe, ciphering as they went for want of thought, what did they do but screw Art into test- tubes, and serve you up the fruit of their litmus-paper assay with vivacity, may be,—but with what kinship to the picture? I maintain that the peeling and gutting of fact must be done in the kitchen: the king's guests are not to know how many times the cook's finger went from cate to mouth before the seasoning was proper to the table. The king is ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... too onct," replied Frenchy with sarcasm. "Went and lugged fifty pound of it all th' way to th' assay office—took me two days! an' that there four-eyed cuss looks at it and snickers. Then he takes me by di' arm an' leads me to th' window. 'See that pile, my friend? That's all like yourn,' sez he. 'It's worth about ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... cast, all our lives other actions must be tride and touched. It is the master-day, the day that judgeth all others: it is the day, saith an auncient Writer, that must judge of all my forepassed yeares. To death doe I referre the essay [Footnote: Assay, exact weighing.] of my studies fruit. There shall wee see whether my discourse proceed from my heart, or from my mouth. I have scene divers, by their death, either in good or evill, give reputation to all their forepassed life. Scipio, father-in-law to Pompey, in well dying, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... worker, who takes the bullion from the warden, causes it to be melted, delivers it to the moneyers, and when it is minted receives it from them again. 3. The comptroller, who sees that the money be made according to the just assize, overlooks the officers and controls them. 4. The assay-master, who sees that the money be according to the standard of fineness. 5. The auditor, who takes the accounts, and makes them up. 6. The surveyor-general, who takes care that the fineness be not altered in the melting. And, ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... done. The quartz ledge that caused the excitement was distinctly in evidence, indeed, when the Tahoe Railway roadbed was being graded, this quartz ledge was blasted into, and the director of operations sent a number of specimens for assay, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James


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