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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



... craftsman conjured 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 ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... bagge twoyche other, but basen twoyche basen. The fyrst bagge of a galon, every on of the other a potell. Fyrst do in to a basen a galon or ij of redwyne, then put in your pouders, and do it in to the renners, and so in to the seconde bagge, then take a pece and assay it. And yef hit be eny thyng to stronge of gynger alay it withe synamon, and yef it be strong of synamon alay it withe sugour cute. And thus schall ye make perfyte Ypocras. And loke your bagges be of boltell clothe, and the mouthes opyn, and let it ren in v or vi bagges on a perche, and ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... after this anecdote, to see us sweeping out the giant powder. It seemed never to be far enough away. And, after all, it was only some rock pounded for assay. ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... floors, but the windows of the upper story, on which are located the refinery and assay ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... there, I don't know, but they is lots of it. Two or three more weeks an' Williams would have struck it from the other side. Now listen, lad: sell out, do you hear me, sell out. It'll bring a handsome price on assay; but sell now, or Williams—" and his voice dropped to a mysterious whisper and he looked suspiciously about him, "or Williams will get the best ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley


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