black-a-vised
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of black-a-vised
1750–60; Scots blackaviced, equivalent to black a vice (one) black of face ( black + a 3 + obsolete vice < Middle French vis; see visage) + -ed 3
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Tall, lean, black-a-vised, muscular, Robert Graves looks younger than his 38 years.
From Time Magazine Archive
The boys called it "The Haunted House," and peopled it with ghosts; gorgeous bucks of the Regency, languishing beauties such as Lawrence painted, fiery politicians, duellists, mysterious black-a-vised foreigners.
From The Hill A Romance of Friendship by Vachell, Horace Annesley
There was a carrier’s cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse’s head, looking about angrily for something.
From Spare Hours by Brown, John
There came to it a tall, black-a-vised woman, who, the moment she saw the girl, cried out— 'Oh, Mary Ann, are you took bad again?'
From The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols by Black, William
There was a carrier’s cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse’s head looking about angrily for something.
From Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 by Sylvester, Charles Herbert
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
