AVOCATION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Avocation

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/ˌævəkˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Avocation n.

A calling away; a diversion. (Obs. or Archaic) "Impulses to duty, and powerful avocations from sin."

That which calls one away from one's regular employment or vocation. "Heaven is his vocation, and therefore he counts earthly employments avocations." "By the secular cares and avocations which accompany marriage the clergy have been furnished with skill in common life." Note: In this sense the word is applied to the smaller affairs of life, or occasional calls which summon a person to leave his ordinary or principal business. Avocation (in the singular) for vocation is usually avoided by good writers.

pl. Pursuits; duties; affairs which occupy one's time; usual employment; vocation. "There are professions, among the men, no more favorable to these studies than the common avocations of women." "In a few hours, above thirty thousand men left his standard, and returned to their ordinary avocations." "An irregularity and instability of purpose, which makes them choose the wandering avocations of a shepherd, rather than the more fixed pursuits of agriculture."

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Etymology of 'Avocation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Avocation" Quotes from Famous Books

... gives me an opportunity to say that observation has convinced me that all good and true book-lovers practise the pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed. Indeed, I fully believe with Judge Methuen that no book can be appreciated until it has been slept with and dreamed over. You recall, perhaps, that eloquent passage in his noble defence of the poet Archias, ...

— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... sailed on the Cove and out into the Sound. They played boys' games, and through him they learned very young to observe nature. In his college days he had intended to be a naturalist, and natural history remained his strong est avocation. And so he taught his children to know the birds and animals, the trees, plants, and flowers of Oyster Bay and its neighborhood. They had their pets—Kermit, one of the boys, carried a ...

— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... “of the cloth” with piscatorial proclivities, who visit Woodhall, the writer would point to this means of healthful relaxation, which he can recommend from experience. Any qualms of the clerical conscience as to the legitimacy of such an avocation—a wholesome calling away from graver duties—may be set at rest on episcopal, and even archi-episcopal, authority. The late Archbishop Magee was an ardent fisherman, and would go on flogging on Irish lough or river, even though he did not get a single rise. (See “Life of W. Connor Magee,” ...

— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... patient pursued his avocation of a stone-mason; no further remedy was required; no inconvenience experienced; and the eschar separated in about ...

— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom

... a big subject that must be treated broadly, for circumstances alter cases. There is a sane way to look at every problem, and the matter of living beyond our means is one of the major problems we have to face. If every man was alike and every avocation in life was on a parity, it would be possible to dispose of this subject in a paragraph. But men are not alike. What one could do successfully might easily baffle another. Therefore, it seems advisable to consider the subject by looking into ...

— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

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