Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of the air, yielding

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin cess-, past participle stem of cedere ("cede").

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Examples

  • God's air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air.

    Ulysses James Joyce 1911

  • From far up stream, where the grey mass of the Cathedral blocked the vale, a faint tapping sound reached them, borne on 'the cessile air.'

    Brother Copas Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

  • The smoke of chimneys arose straight on the "cessile air," making a soft dun-coloured haze through which the light of the declining day was filtered in streams of yellow -- pale lemon-yellow, golden-yellow, orange, orange-tawny.

    Hocken and Hunken Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

  • Simple and erect. its leaves are cauline, and Spredding. the leafits are jointed & oppositly poinnate 3 par and termonateing in one, cessile widest at the base and tapering to an accuminated point, an inch and

    The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 Meriwether Lewis 1791

  • Same with that called the balsam fir of Canada. it grows here to considerable Size, being from 21/2 to 4 feet in diameeter and rises to the hight of 100 or 120 feet. it's Stem is Simple branching assending and proliferous -. it's leaves are cessile, acerose, 1/8 of an inch in length and 1/16 of an inch in width, thickly scattered on all Sides of the twigs as far as the groth of four proceeding years, and respects the three undersides only, the upper Side being neglected and the under

    The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 Meriwether Lewis 1791

  • God’s air, the Allfather’s air, scintillant circumambient cessile air.

    Ulysses 2003

Comments

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  • "God's air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air."

    Joyce, Ulysses, 14

    January 27, 2007

  • from Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Fun fact: this adjective (meaning "yielding") is only used to modify air.

    July 19, 2009