Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- interj. Nautical Used as a command to stop or desist.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Nautical, stop! hold! cease! stay!
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- interj. Cease; stop; stay.
Etymologies
- From Middle Dutch hou vast, hold fast : hou, houd, imperative of houden, to hold + vast, fast; see past- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“January 19, 2010 at 7: 37 AM avast is ok its always crashes my system when i load the program i have window media center”
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“Krauthammer lands 'is shots sqare avast' is bow! redneck_hippie”
“Time was, you'd interview a pirate spokesman and every other word would be "avast" or "arrr.”
“Don't think I could keep up the 'avast's and 'me hearties' during all that time, sorry.”
“Souls too timid to say things like "avast" and "arrr" and "shiver me timbers" out loud in public can consider the comments thread a safe place to Post Like A Pirate all day.”
“But a sharp "avast" stopped them, and four or five cabin-boys gambolled out on it ashore.”
“In a few minutes the second mate came up, hallooing to us to "avast," and laughing.”
“Spend the day filling your posts with 'avast', 'it be ...' and general pirate mayhem.”
“June 08, 2009 at 1: 30 PM my suggestions: sdigsby pdigin mediamonkey songbird sugarsync dropbox avast avg”
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Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘avast’.
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 314 more...
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Mobying Along
looks like there's not an open Moby Dick list. So now there is.
hypos, Manhattoes, circumambulate, mole, grapnels, bowsprit, asphaltic, mazy, tranced, cataract, ungraspable, judgmatically and 227 more...
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Thats a word?!
Unusual jumbles of letters that are actually words
asci, lin, avast, presumptuousness, drumble, repudiate, anile, feal, dawt, haver, apery, hoary and 10 more...
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Arrr.... Pirate Lingo
davy jones locker, ahoy!, scurvy, slimebucket, plank, aye, keelhaul, booty, avast, scallywag, parlay, shiver me timbers! and 1 more...
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Stoppage
Stop words.
stop, freeze, hault, quit, nevermore, end, finish, complete, done, final, yield, pause and 14 more...
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Pirate Words
Arrrrrrrgh. September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, mateys.
arrrrrrrrgh., ahoy, plank, avast, shiver-me-timbers, wench, scurvey dogs, aye aye, land lubber, swabbie, swashbuckle, gold and 21 more...
Jubjub 5 examples here, but only one uses the word avast. Avast, a bug! Feb 1, 2010
chained_bear It's a verb, I've always heard. Why would one say it's defective? Sep 28, 2009
qroqqa What part of speech be avast? Karl 'Peg-leg' Hagen be concludin' 'tis a defective verb. Sep 28, 2009
ecbrenner "a nautical command to stop or cease" --Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary May 21, 2009